'Well, I really _must_ be off,' said Farrell again, looking for his hat. 'And I see you are going out for the day.' He glanced at the lunch preparations. 'Do you know Loughrigg Tarn?' He turned to Nelly. 'Oh, yes!' Her face glowed. 'Isn't it beautiful? But I don't think George knows it.' She looked up at him. He smiled and shook his head. 'I have a cottage there,' said Farrell, addressing Sarratt. 'Wordsworth said it was like Nemi. It isn't:--but it's beautiful all the same. I wish you would bring your wife there to tea with me one day before you go? There is an old woman who looks after me. This view is fine'--he pointed to the window--'but I think mine is finer.' 'Thank you,' said Sarratt, rather formally--'but I am afraid our days are getting pretty full.' 'Of course, of course!' said Sir William, smiling. 'I only meant, if you happened to be walking in that direction and want a rest. I have a number of drawings there--my own and other people's, which Mrs. Sarratt might care to see--sometime. You go on Saturday?' 'Yes. I'm due to rejoin by Monday.' Farrell's expression darkened. 'You see what keeps me?' he said, sharply, striking his left knee with the flat of his hand. 'I had a bad fall, shooting in Scotland, years ago--when I was quite a lad. Something went wrong in the knee-cap. The doctors muffed it, and I have had a stiff knee ever since. I daresay they'd give me work at the War Office--or the Admiralty. Lots of fellows I know who can't serve are doing war-work of that kind. But I can't stand office work--never could. It makes me ill, and in a week of it I am fit to hang myself. I live out of doors. I've done some recruiting--speaking for the Lord Lieutenant. But I can't speak worth a cent--and I do no good. No fellow ever joined up because of my eloquence!--couldn't if he tried. No--I've given up my house--it was the best thing I could do. It's a jolly house, and I've got lots of jolly things in it. But the War Office and I between us have turned it into a capital hospital. We take men from the Border regiments mostly. I wonder if I shall ever be able to live in it again! My sister and I are now in the agent's house. I work at the hospital three or four days a week--and then I come here and sketch. I don't see why I shouldn't.' He straightened his shoulder as though defying somebody. Yet there was something appealing, and, as it were, boyish, in the defiance. The man's patriotic conscience could be felt struggling with his dilettantism. Sarratt suddenly liked him. 'No, indeed,' he said heartily. 'Why shouldn't you?' 'It's when one thinks of _your_ job, one feels a brute to be doing anything one likes.' 'Well, you'd be doing the same job if you could. That's all right!' said Sarratt smiling.