Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound.  The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome diversion.

‘Walk in!’ said the shepherd promptly.

The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat.  The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at him.

Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not unprepossessing as to feature.  His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room.  He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, ’The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest awhile.’

‘To be sure, stranger,’ said the shepherd.  ’And faith, you’ve been lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a glad cause—­though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to happen more than once a year.’

‘Nor less,’ spoke up a woman.  ’For ’tis best to get your family over and done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of the fag o’t.’

‘And what may be this glad cause?’ asked the stranger.

‘A birth and christening,’ said the shepherd.

The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug, he readily acquiesced.  His manner, which, before entering, had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and candid man.

‘Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb—­hey?’ said the engaged man of fifty.

’Late it is, master, as you say.—­I’ll take a seat in the chimney-corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma’am; for I am a little moist on the side that was next the rain.’

Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home.

‘Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,’ he said freely, seeing that the eyes of the shepherd’s wife fell upon his boots, ’and I am not well fitted either.  I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for working-days when I reach home.’

‘One of hereabouts?’ she inquired.

‘Not quite that—­further up the country.’

’I thought so.  And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my neighbourhood.’

‘But you would hardly have heard of me,’ he said quickly.  ’My time would be long before yours, ma’am, you see.’

This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of stopping her cross-examination.