And as we sat there, gazing and listening, a human voice came out of the night—­a call prolonged and modulated like the coo-ee of the Australian bush, far off and faint; but the children in the kitchen heard it at the same time, for they too had been listening, and instantly went mad with excitement.

“Father!” they all screamed together.  “Father’s coming!” and out they rushed and away they fled down the darkening road, exerting their full voices in shrill answering cries.

We were anxious to see this unfortunate man, who was yet happy in a loving family.  He had gone early in the morning in his donkey-cart to the little market town, fourteen miles away, to get the few necessaries they could afford to buy.  Doubtless they would be very few.  We had not long to wait, as the white donkey that drew the cart had put on a tremendous spurt at the end, notwithstanding that the four youngsters had climbed in to add to his burden.  But what was our surprise to behold in the charioteer a tall, gaunt, grey-faced old man with long white hair and beard!  He must have been seventy, that old man with a young wife and four happy bright-eyed little children!

We could understand it better when he finally settled down in his corner in the kitchen and began to relate the events of the day, addressing his poor little wife, now busy darning or patching an old garment, while the children, clustered at his knee, listened as to a fairy tale.  Certainly this white-haired man had not grown old in mind; he was keenly interested in all he saw and heard, and he had seen and heard much in the little market town that day.  Cattle and pigs and sheep and shepherds and sheepdogs; farmers, shopkeepers, dealers, publicans, tramps, and gentlefolks in carriages and on horseback; shops, too, with beautiful new things in the windows; millinery, agricultural implements, flowers and fruit and vegetables; toys and books and sweeties of all colours.  And the people he had met on the road and at market, and what they had said to him about the weather and their business and the prospects of the year, how their wives and children were, and the clever jokes they had made, and his own jokes, which were the cleverest of all.  If he had just returned from Central Africa or from Thibet he could not have had more to tell them nor told it with greater zest.

We went to our room, but until the small hours the wind of the old traveller’s talk could still be heard at intervals from the kitchen, mingled with occasional shrill explosions of laughter from the listening children.