The path through the wood, on the very brow of a slope, ran winding easily for a time. All around were twiggy oaks, just issuing their gold, and floor spaces diapered with woodruff, with patches of dog-mercury and tufts of hyacinth. Two fallen trees still lay across the track. Syson jolted down a steep, rough slope, and came again upon the open land, this time looking north as through a great window in the wood. He stayed to gaze over the level fields of the hill-top, at the village which strewed the bare upland as if it had tumbled off the passing waggons of industry, and been forsaken. There was a stiff, modern, grey little church, and blocks and rows of red dwellings lying at random; at the back, the twinkling headstocks of the pit, and the looming pit-hill. All was naked and out-of-doors, not a tree! It was quite unaltered. Syson turned, satisfied, to follow the path that sheered downhill into the wood. He was curiously elated, feeling himself back in an enduring vision. He started. A keeper was standing a few yards in front, barring the way. “Where might you be going this road, sir?” asked the man. The tone of his question had a challenging twang. Syson looked at the fellow with an impersonal, observant gaze. It was a young man of four or five and twenty, ruddy and well favoured. His dark blue eyes now stared aggressively at the intruder. His black moustache, very thick, was cropped short over a small, rather soft mouth. In every other respect the fellow was manly and good-looking. He stood just above middle height; the strong forward thrust of his chest, and the perfect ease of his erect, self-sufficient body, gave one the feeling that he was taut with animal life, like the thick jet of a fountain balanced in itself. He stood with the butt of his gun on the ground, looking uncertainly and questioningly at Syson. The dark, restless eyes of the trespasser, examining the man and penetrating into him without heeding his office, troubled the keeper and made him flush. “Where is Naylor? Have you got his job?” Syson asked. “You’re not from the House, are you?” inquired the keeper. It could not be, since everyone was away. “No, I’m not from the House,” the other replied. It seemed to amuse him. “Then might I ask where you were making for?” said the keeper, nettled. “Where I am making for?” Syson repeated. “I am going to Willey-Water Farm.” “This isn’t the road.” “I think so. Down this path, past the well, and out by the white gate.” “But that’s not the public road.” “I suppose not. I used to come so often, in Naylor’s time, I had forgotten. Where is he, by the way?” “Crippled with rheumatism,” the keeper answered reluctantly. “Is he?” Syson exclaimed in pain. “And who might you be?” asked the keeper, with a new intonation. “John Adderley Syson; I used to live in Cordy Lane.” “Used to court Hilda Millership?” Syson’s eyes opened with a pained smile. He nodded. There was an awkward silence. “And you—who are you?” asked Syson.