"Eh, Master Austin," said Lubin, emerging from among the rhododendrons, "if I'd known you was a-listening I'd 'a faked up something from a French opera for you. Why, that's an old song as I've known ever since I was that high--'Tom of Exeter' they calls it. It's a rare favourite wi' the maids down in the parts I come from." "Shows their good taste," said Austin. "It's awfully pretty. Who was Tom Dove, and why did he come to town?" "Nay, I can't tell," replied Lubin. "Tis some made-up tale, I doubt. They do say as how he was a tailor. But there is folks as'll say anything, you know." "A tailor!" exclaimed Austin, scornfully, "That I'm sure he wasn't. But oh, Lubin, there _is_ somebody coming to town in a day or two--somebody I want to find out about. Do you often go into the town?" "Eh, well, just o' times; when there's anything to take me there," answered Lubin, vaguely. "On market-days, every now and again." "Oh yes, I know, when you go and sell ducks," put in Austin. "Now what I want to know is this. Have you, within the last three or four weeks, seen a stranger anywhere about?" "A stranger?" repeated Lubin. "Ay, that I certainly have. Any amount o' strangers." "Oh well, yes, of course, how stupid of me!" exclaimed Austin, impatiently. "There must have been scores and scores. But I mean a particular stranger--a certain person in particular, if you understand me. Anybody whose appearance struck you in any way." "Well, but what sort of a stranger?" asked Lubin. "Can't you tell me anything about him? What'd he look like, now?" "That's just what I want to find out," replied Austin. "If I could describe him I shouldn't want you to. All I know is that he's a sort of elderly gentleman, rather more than fifty. He may be fifty-five, or getting on for sixty. Now, isn't that near enough? Oh--and I'm almost sure that he's a traveller." "H'm," pondered Lubin, leaning on his broom reflectively. "Well, yes, I did see a sort of elderly gentleman some three or four weeks ago, standing at the bar o' the 'Coach-and-Horses.' What his age might be I couldn't exactly say, 'cause he was having a drink with his back turned to the door. But he was a traveller, that I know." "A traveller? I wonder whether that was the one!" exclaimed Austin. "Had he a dark-brown face? Or a wooden leg? Or a scar down one of his cheeks?" "Not as I see," answered Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "But a traveller he was, because the barmaid told me so. Travelled all over the country in bonnets." "Travelled in bonnets?" cried Austin. "What _do_ you mean, Lubin? How can a man go travelling about the country in a bonnet? Had he a bonnet on when you saw him drinking in the bar?"