man stood under the
archway of the Pack-horse Inn (by A. Walters), with his soft hat tilted
over his nose, a cigar in his mouth, hands in his trouser pockets, and
legs a-straddle, and smoked and eyed the passers-by with a twinkle of
humour.

He knew them all again, or nearly all. He had quitted Tregarrick for
the Cape at the age of fifteen, under the wing of a cousin from the
Mining District, had made money out there, and meant to return to make
more, and was home just now on a holiday, with gold in his pocket and
the merest trace of silver in his hair. He watched the people passing,
and it all seemed very queer to him and amusing.

They were one and all acting and behaving just as they had used to act
and behave. Some were a trifle greyer, perhaps, and others stooped a
bit; but they went about their business in the old fashion, and their
occupations had not changed. It was just as if he had wound up a
clockwork toy before leaving England, and had returned after many years
to find it still working. Here came old Dymond, the postman, with the
usual midday delivery, light as ever, and the well-remembered
dot-and-go-one gait. The maids who came out to take the letters were
different; in one of them the Emigrant recognised a little girl who had
once sat facing him in the Wesleyan day-school; but the bells that
fetched them out were those on which he had sounded runaway peals in
former days, and with his eyes shut he could have sworn to old Dymond's
double-knock. The cart that rattled its load of empty cans up the
street belonged to Nicholas Retallack ("Old Nick"), the milkman, and
that was Retallack beside it, returning from his morning round. The
Emigrant took the cigar from his mouth and blew a lazy cloud. But for
Retallack he might never have seen South Africa or known Johannesburg.
Retallack had caught him surreptitiously milking the Alderney into a
battered straw hat, and had threatened a summons. There had been a
previous summons with a conviction, and the Mayor had hinted at the
Reformatory, so the Emigrant had been packed off. And here he was, back
again; and here was Retallack trudging around, the same as ever.

In the window across the road a saddler sat cutting out a strap, and
reminding the Emigrant of a certain First of April when he had ventured
in and inquired for half a pint of strap-oil. It might almost be the
same strap, as it certainly was the same saddler.

Down at the street corner, by t