One early April afternoon, in a Worcestershire field, the only field in that immediate landscape which was not down in grass, a man moved slowly athwart the furrows, sowing--a big man of heavy build, swinging his hairy brown arm with the grace of strength.

He wore no coat or hat; a waistcoat, open over a blue-checked cotton shirt, flapped against belted corduroys that were somewhat the color of his square, pale-brown face and dusty hair.

His eyes were sad, with the swimming yet fixed stare of epileptics; his mouth heavy-lipped, so that, but for the yearning eyes, the face would have been almost brutal.

He looked as if he suffered from silence.

The elm-trees bordering the field, though only just in leaf, showed dark against a white sky.