here's times when I can't get past the Cross Keys; I'm drawed into
it."

"Why do you pass it, then?" asked Dennis.

"I don't pass it, master, worse luck. I go in."

"But I mean," said Dennis, getting still redder in the face with the
effort to explain himself, "why do you go by the Cross Keys at all?"

"Well, I have to," said Tuvvy, "twice in the day. Once of a morning and
once of a evening. I live at Upwell, you see, master."

Dennis had never known or cared where Tuvvy lived, and indeed it hardly
seemed natural to think of him in any other place than at work in the
barn. It was odd to think he had a home in Upwell.

"Then," he said thoughtfully, "you have to walk more than two miles each
way."

"All that," said Tuvvy--"more like three."

He bent over his work, and Dennis sat silent and rather despondent, with
his eyes fixed on the ground. There was so little chance for Tuvvy, if
he really could not pass the Cross Keys without being "drawed in."
There seemed nothing more to say. Presently, however, Tuvvy himself
continued the conversation.

"Night's the worst," he said, "and winter worse nor any. It's mortal
cold working here all day, and a man's spirit's pretty nigh freezed out
of him by the time work's done. And then there's the tramp home, and
long before I get to the village, I see the light behind the red blind
at the Cross Keys. It streams out into the road, and it says: `Tuvvy,'
it says, `it's warm in here, and you're cold. There's light in here,
and a bit of talk, and a newspaper; and outside it's all dark and
lonesome, and a good long stretch to Upwell. Come in, and have a drop
to cheer you up. You don't need to stop more'n five minutes.' And
then--"

Tuvvy stopped, raised his black eyebrows, and shook his head.

"Well?" said Dennis.

"Well, master," repeated Tuvvy, "then I go in."

"And do you come out in five minutes?" asked Dennis.

Tuvvy shook his head again: "It's the red blind as draws me in," he
said, "and once I'm in, I stay there."

"Mr Tuvvy," said Dennis, after a pause, with renewed hope in his voice,
"I've thought of something. Why don't you go home across the fields?
You wouldn't have to pass the Cross Keys then, you see, and wouldn't see
the red blind, and it couldn't draw you in."

"There ain't no way out into the road," objected Tuvvy.

"There _is_," said Dennis; "I've often been. You'd have to cross over
part of one of Aunt Katharine's fields, and then there