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“You are a stranger in these parts?” or “Is not this part of the country strange to you?”

There was no “sir,” nor any outward and visible sign of the deference usually paid by real country folk to the town-bred visitor, but in its place a gentleness, almost a sweetness, of polite sympathy that was far more of a compliment than either.

I answered that I was wandering on foot through a part of the country that was wholly new to me, and that I was surprised not to find a place of such idyllic loveliness marked upon my map.

“I have lived here all my life,” he said, with a sigh, “and am never tired of coming back to it again.”

“Then you no longer live in the immediate neighbourhood?”

“I have moved,” he answered briefly, adding after a pause in which his eyes seemed to wander wistfully to the wealth of blossoms beyond the window; “but I am almost sorry, for nowhere else have I found the sunshine lie so warmly, the flowers smell so sweetly, or the winds and streams make such tender music. . . .”

His voice died away into a thin stream of sound that lost itself in the rustle of the rose-leaves climbing in at the window, for he turned his head away from me as he spoke and looked out into the garden. But it was impossible to conceal my surprise, and I raised my eyes in frank astonishment on hearing so poetic an utterance from such a figure of a man, though at the same time realising that it was not in the least inappropriate, and that, in fact, no other sort of expression could have properly been expected from him.

“I am sure you are right,” I answered at length, when it was clear he had ceased speaking; “or there is something of enchantment here–of real fairy-like enchantment–that makes me think of the visions of childhood days, before one knew anything of–of–“

I had been oddly drawn into his vein of speech, some inner force compelling me. But here the spell passed and I could not catch the thoughts that had a moment before opened a long vista before my inner vision.

“To tell you the truth,” I concluded lamely, “the place fascinates me and I am in two minds about going further–“

Even at this stage I remember thinking it odd that I should be talking like this with a stranger whom I met in a country inn, for it has always been one of my failings that to strangers my manner is brief to surliness. It was as though we were figures meeting in a dream, speaking without sound, obeying laws not operative in the everyday working world, and about to play with a new scale of space and time perhaps. But my astonishment passed quickly into an entirely different feeling when I became aware that the old man opposite had turned his head from the window again, and was regarding me with eyes so bright they seemed almost to shine with an inner flame. His gaze was fixed upon my face with an intense ardour, and his whole manner had suddenly become alert and concentrated. There was something about him I now felt for the first time that made little thrills of excitement run up and down my back. I met his look squarely, but with an inward tremor.

“Stay, then, a little while longer,” he said in a much lower and deeper voice than before; “stay, and I will teach you something of the purpose of my coming.”

He stopped abruptly. I was conscious of a decided shiver.

“You have a special purpose then–in coming back?” I asked, hardly knowing what I was saying.

“To call away someone,” he went on in the same thrilling voice, “someone who is not quite ready to come, but who is needed elsewhere for a worthier purpose.” There was a sadness in his manner that mystified me more than ever.