To a groom crossing the drive at Watters he handed over his horse, and went up through the gate at the top of the garden to the fields above. The house behind him lay silent and apparently deserted, but in Hamer’s meadow there was a busy little community, receiving that particular instruction in butter-making which comes under the County Council heading of “Higher Education.” The Travelling Dairy Van from Asprigg was planted on the breast of the hill looking over the tiny, half-hidden village below, the long curve of the North Road, and the upward sweep of the park. In the big tent stretching from the side of the Van a dozen churns were at work on the wet boards of the temporary floor, and in the frame of lifted curtains on the far side the white gowns of pupils and instructress showed vividly against the green of the hill beyond. There was quite a little crowd on the surrounding benches, for this was examination-day, and relatives and friends were present to support the last supreme effort. On the raised platform of the Van, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, together with Helwise and a county lady or two, backgrounded by a couple of husbands, an odd parson and Grumphy, surveyed the final throes of competition. The examiner, moving about among the workers, was very busy being taught his business by Harriet, mightily full of contempt for all Dairy Schools and officials thereto attached. In the last little gleam of sun outside Wiggie was walking slowly with his brother, while a gentle, foreign-looking woman struggled with a trio of joyous ruffians rolling down the hill. Stubbs had a fourth in the Rakestraw bath-chair, and was wheeling it patiently if awkwardly over the steep slope. The fourth was a sad little boy of eight, with black eyes swallowing up a pathetic face, conducting the bath-chair progression with the solemnity of high ceremonial. He smiled once, though, when a rapturous thrush, enamoured of the growing sunset, flung it a little flutter of song from a near hedge; and Lanty suddenly saw Wiggie in the smile. From the middle of the tent, where the scales awaited the butter, the caretaker ruled teacher and taught alike, by virtue of ancient standing, peculiar wit, and a deficiency in hearing which made mutual wordy warfare impossible. To this autocrat Lanty handed his onlooker’s threepence, stopping to exchange a word with the examiner before joining Hamer on the platform. Harriet, however, was still saying her say.