154 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



watched him go on feeling his way along the edge 

 of the road with his stick. He was a mile or more 

 from the village at a spot where the road went 

 by a wood. A little further on by the roadside 

 the benevolent landlord — would that there were 

 more like him ! — had placed a garden bench in the 

 shade for tired travellers to rest on. The man was 

 making his way to this seat and after he had 

 settled down I went back and sat by him. He was a 

 big healthy fine-looking man, a native of the village, 

 a son of a farm labourer. He, more ambitious, left 

 his home as a youth to find other employment, but it 

 was a dangerous trade he took up and as a result of an 

 explosion of powder in his face his vision was destroyed 

 for ever. He came back to his village which, he said, 

 he would never quit again. It was the one place 

 known to him and although it was now covered with 

 darkness he would still see it with his inner eye — the 

 streets and houses, the fields, roads, hedges, woods, 

 and streams — all this area which had been his play- 

 ground in his early years was so well remembered that 

 he could still find his way about in it. 



He told me he made his living by selling tea which 

 he procured in quantities direct from a London mer- 

 chant and retailed to the cottages in half and quarter^ 

 pound packets. They took their tea from him because 

 he served them at their own doors. On certain days 

 of the week he visited the neighbouring villages doing 

 a circuit of twenty-five or thirty miles in the day. On 

 these occasions he had a little girl of ten to guide him. 



