I went back to my work a little depressed—why had I not white hair?—for a few minutes had shown me that I was not old enough for the child despite my forty years. She was quite happy with the little black cat, which lay in the small lap blinking its yellow eyes at the sun; and presently an old man came by, lame and bent, with gnarled twisted hands, leaning heavily on his stick. He greeted me in a high, piping voice, limped across to the child, and sat down. “Your little maid, mister?” he said. I explained. “Ah,” he said, “I’ve left a little darlin’ like this at ’ome. It’s ’ard on us old folks when we’re one too many; but the little mouths must be filled, and my son, ’e said ’e didn’t see they could keep me on the arf-crown, with another child on the way; so I’m tramping to N—, to the House; but it’s a ’ard pinch, leavin’ the little ones.” I looked at him—a typical countryman, with white hair, mild blue eyes, and a rosy, childish, unwrinkled face. “I’m eighty-four,” he went on, “and terrible bad with the rheumatics and my chest. Maybe it’ll not be long before the Lord remembers me.” The child crept close and put a sticky little hand confidingly into the tired old palm. The two looked strangely alike, for the world seems much the same to those who leave it behind as to those who have but taken the first step on its circular pathway. “’Ook at my kitty,” she said, pointing to the small creature in her lap. Then, as the old man touched it with trembling fingers she went on—“’Oo isn’t my grandad; he’s away in the sky, but I’ll kiss ’oo.” I worked on, hearing at intervals the old piping voice and the child-treble, much of a note; and thinking of the blessings vouchsafed to the simple old age which crowns a harmless working-life spent in the fields. The two under the hedge had everything in common and were boundlessly content together, the sting of the knowledge of good and evil past for the one, and for the other still to come; while I stood on the battlefield of the world, the flesh, and the devil, though, thank God, with my face to the foe. The old man sat resting: I had promised him a lift with my friend the driver of the flour-cart, and he was almost due when the child’s grandmother came down the road. When she saw my other visitor she stood amazed. “What, Richard Hunton, that worked with my old man years ago up at Ditton, whatever are you doin’ all these miles from your own place?” “Is it Eliza Jakes?” He looked at her dazed, doubtful. “An’ who else should it be? Where’s your memory gone, Richard Hunton, and you not such a great age either? Where are you stayin’?” Shame overcame him; his lips trembled, his mild blue eyes filled with tears. I told the tale as I had heard it, and Mrs Jakes’s indignation was good to see.