It was Martin the landlord who answered my question.

“Things ain’t right,” he observed, and returned to his mouth the pipe which he had removed for the purpose of addressing me.

“You don’t know half of it,” declared Hawkins.  “What’s my job, for instance?  I ask you—­what is it?”

Having thus spoken, he exchanged a significant look with the landlord and relapsed into silence.  Even my offer to replenish his tankard, although it was accepted, did not result in any further confidences.  Prospects of crops and fruit were briefly touched upon, but that exchange of glances between mine host and Hawkins seemed to have been mutually understood to mean that the conversation touching Friar’s Park had proceeded far enough.

It was very mystifying, and naturally it served only to pique my curiosity.  A certain quality of loneliness which had seemed to belong to the village, even in the brightness of the summer evening, now asserted itself potently.  Seated there in the quiet little inn parlor, I recalled that many of the old-world cottages to right and left of the Abbey Inn had exhibited every indication of being deserted, and the lack of patrons instanced by the emptiness of the bar-parlor was certainly not ascribable to the quality of the ale, which was excellent.  A sort of blight it would seem had descended upon humanity in Upper Crossleys.  It was all very curious.

Reflecting upon the matter, and sometimes interjecting a word or two into the purely technical and very desultory conversation proceeding between the landlord and Hawkins, I sat looking from one to the other, more than ever convinced that no friendship was lost between them.  My position in the room was such that any one entering would not detect my presence until he was right up to the bar, and to this sheltered seat I was undoubtedly indebted for a very strange experience.

During a lull in the patently forced conversation I heard footsteps upon the cobbles outside.  Hawkins and the landlord exchanged a swift glance, and then to my surprise they both stared at me questioningly.  Before a word could be exchanged, however, and before I had time even to surmise what this covert uneasiness might portend, a young fellow entered whose carriage and dress immediately attracted my attention.

He was attired, then, in a sort of burlesque “fashionable” lounge suit and wore a straw hat set rakishly backward on his well-oiled dark hair.  He carried gloves and a malacca cane, and his gait was one of assured superiority.  He was a stoutly-built, muscular young fellow and might ordinarily have been good-looking after a rustic fashion, but what principally rendered him noticeable was the fact that he wore surgical bandages around his neck in lieu of a collar and that his face was literally a mosaic of sticking-plaster!

“Evening, Martin—­evening, Hawkins,” he said jauntily; and advancing to the bar, “The usual, Martin.”