The landlord of the "Carne's Arms" was somewhat puzzled by a stranger who had just been dropped at his door by the coach from Plymouth. He did not look like either a fisherman or an artist, or even a wandering tourist. His clothes were somewhat rough, and the landlord would have taken him for a farmer, but what could any strange farmer be stopping at Carnesford for? There were no farms vacant in the neighbourhood, nor any likely to be, so far as the landlord knew; besides, the few words his guest had spoken as he entered had no touch of the Devonshire dialect. While he was standing at the door, turning the matter over in his mind--for he rather prided himself upon his ability to decide upon the calling and object of his guests, and was annoyed by his failure to do so in the present instance--the man he was thinking of came out of the coffee-room and placed himself beside him. "Well, landlord, this is a pretty village of yours; they told me in Plymouth it was as pretty a place as any about, and I see they were right." "Yes, most folks think it's pretty," the landlord said, "although I am so accustomed to it myself I don't see a great deal in it." "Yes, custom is everything. I have been accustomed for a great many years to see nothing much but plains, with clumps of bush here and there, and occasionally a herd of deer walking across it. I have been farming down at the Cape, and so, you see, a quiet, pretty place like this is very pleasant to me." "I should think it is quiet enough farming there," the landlord said. "I have heard from folk who have been out in some of those parts that you often haven't a neighbour nearer than four miles away." "That's true enough, landlord, but the life is not always quiet for all that. It's not quiet, for instance, when you hear the yell of a hundred or so savages outside your windows, or see a party driving half your cattle away into the bush." "No, I shouldn't call that quiet; and that is what you have been doing?" "Yes, I was in the disturbed part when the Kaffirs rose. Most of our neighbours were killed, and we had a hard time of it, but some mounted police came up just in time. I have had trouble three or four times before, and it's no use going on for years rearing cattle if they are to be all swept away by the natives, and you are running the risk of getting your throat cut in the bargain; so, after this last affair, I locked up my farmhouse, drove off what cattle I had got left, and sold them for what I could get for them, and here I am." "Yes, here you are," repeated the landlord; "and what next?" "The ship touched at Plymouth, and I thought I might as well get out there as anywhere else. Well, there is too much noise and bustle at Plymouth. I haven't been used to it, and so now I am just looking for a little place to suit me. I have been up to Tavistock, and then some one said that Carnesford was a pretty village. I said I would look at Carnesford, and so you see here I am."