It was separated from The Green Man by only thirty yards of straggling roses and lawn and all the showy annuals which you find in a pub garden. Its other side faced a cart track beyond which was an abandoned yard, grass and nettles growing through the paving, where former stables and a half-roofless coach house formed an L-shaped block. I was sitting up doing accounts in the kitchen, because the light was better. In the other room the lamp was so placed that you could only see to read or write in bed. It was after twelve, and a man coming down from the hills would not have seen another lit curtain for miles. I don’t think he knocked. He probably leant on the back-door and its latch at the same time, and both opened. His clothes were torn and he was plastered with dried mud. His hair was hanging over his eyes and matted with filth. Because it was fair and lank it looked all the more dishevelled and pathetic, like the forelock of a dun horse which has pitched on its head in the mud and got to its feet, without dignity or sense of direction but still game.
