There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening before them. In front in groves of birch and rowans smoked the first houses of a tiny village. The road had become a green "loaning" on the ample margin of which cattle grazed. The moorland still showed itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval. "Some infernal trippers!" he murmured. "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate everything. Why can't the _tunicatus popellus_ keep away from a paradise like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder, when Mr. Heritage's tone changed. "Ye gods! What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner. There were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient wooden pump. There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a post-office--only a red box in a cottage side. Beyond rose the high wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore the legend "The Cruives Inn." The Poet became lyrical. "At last!" he cried. "The village of my dreams! Not a sign of commerce! No church or school or beastly recreation hall! Nothing but these divine little cottages and an ancient pub! Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a tea." And he declaimed: "Thou shalt hear a song After a while which Gods may listen to; But place the flask upon the board and wait Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst, For poets, grasshoppers and nightingales Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist." Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea. But, as they drew nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look. The cobbles of the yard were weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken, and the blinds hung tattered. The garden was a wilderness, and the doorstep had not been scoured for weeks. But the place had a landlord, for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.