When the church bells had stopped and the village street was deserted, Mr. Wycherly, the two little boys and Mause went to play in a field that adjoined the Manse. To get to this field, which was rich in buttercups and hedge parsley, and was bordered by ash trees giving a pleasant shade, you turned down a lane, which was also a short cut to the station, lying a mile or so south of the village. The Manse was at one end of the lane, the main street of the village at the other: the gate leading into the field about half-way down. As the little boys neared it they saw a stranger coming from the opposite direction. It was unusual to meet anybody in that lane, especially at this time of day on the Sabbath, and the children waited at the gate to see the stranger pass. Mr. Wycherly, whose long-distance sight was failing a little, put up his eye-glasses lest he might know the stranger and pass him by without greeting, as he was rather prone to do. Hardly had he placed the glasses on his nose than they dropped off again, and with an exclamation of surprise he hurried forward, holding out both his hands, which the stranger grasped and warmly shook. He was a tall young man, with very large bright eyes and an abundance of curly black hair, worn rather longer than was usual at that time. He seized Mr. Wycherly by the arm and bore him up the lane again, talking eagerly the while. "I must see her," the little boys heard him say. "I must see her somehow, and I daren’t go into the house, for he has forbidden me. Could you tell her? Could you fetch her? I’ll stay with the youngsters. Oh, dear old friend, for God’s sake don’t frighten her, but bring her to me somehow. She isn’t in church, I know, for I watched every one go in from behind the hedge in the churchyard. I was coming to you in any case...." Mr. Wycherly and the young man had passed out of earshot. Montagu and Edmund looked at one another with large, round eyes, and Mause looked after Mr. Wycherly and sniffed the air inquiringly. "Do you think he’s a relation?" Edmund asked. "Do you think he’s come to stay with us?" "He can’t stay with us," Montagu answered decidedly; "there isn’t any room. I wish he could, though," he added; "he looks rather nice." A sound of quick footsteps in the lane, and the stranger was back again, but without Mr. Wycherly. "Now," he said, "what shall we play at?" He said it in a business-like way, and Edmund did the stranger the honour to take him at his word. "Can you be a tiger?" he demanded excitedly, "and we’ll hunt you. You must crawl in the grass, and crouch in the ditch—it’s quite dry—and bounce out at us and growl, not too loud, because it’s the Sabbath."