able enough ebullition of feeling
and ought not to have caused the passing pedestrian to spin round on
his heel, astonishment on every line of his face. The next moment,
however, he recovered himself. "Did you call out to me?" he shouted.

The tinker was nursing his toe, apparently unconscious of having given
anyone more food for thought than usual. "No," he replied gruffly. "I
'urt myself."

The passer-by turned and pursued his way to the village. The tinker
lit his lamps and followed. He was a retiring sort of tinker, and
employed no flamboyant methods to advertise his wares. He jingled
through the village without attracting any customers--or apparently
desiring to attract any--and followed the sandy coast road for some
miles.

At length he pulled up, and from his seat on the off-shaft sat
motionless for a minute, listening. The horse, as if realising that
its dreams of a warm stable were dreams indeed, hung its head
dejectedly, and in the faint gleam, of the lamp its breath rose in thin
vapour. The man descended from his perch on the shaft and, going to
his nag's head, turned the cart off the road.

For some minutes the man and horse stumbled through the darkness; the
cart jolted, and the tin merchandise rattled dolefully. The tinker,
true to the traditions of his calling, swore again. Then he found what
he had been looking for, an uneven track that wound among the
sand-dunes towards the shore. The murmur of the sea became suddenly
loud and distinct.

With a jerk the horse and cart came to a standstill. In a leisurely
fashion the tinker unharnessed his mare, tied a nosebag on her, and
tethered her to the tail of the cart. In the same deliberate manner he
rummaged about among his wares till he produced a bundle of sticks and
some pieces of turf. With these under his arm, he scrambled off across
the sand-hills to the sea.

The incoming tide sobbed and gurgled along miniature headlands of rock
that stretched out on either side of a little bay. The sand-hills
straggled down almost to high-water mark, where the winter storms had
piled a barrier of kelp and debris. At one place a rough track down to
the shingle had been worn in the sand by the feet of fishermen using
the cove in fine weather during the summer.

The tinker selected a site for his fire in a hollow that opened to the
sea. He built a hearth with flat stones, fetched a kettle from the
cart, kindled the fire, and busied himself with pr