His mind, after his fashion, conjured up in geographical simultaneousness all the scenes around him. He saw the long, low ridge of upland, on the east slope of which lay the village of King’s Barton, and along the top of which ran the highroad linking together the scholastic retreats of Ramsgard with the shops and tanneries of Blacksod. He saw the rich, pastoral Dorsetshire valley on his right. He saw the willows and the reeds of the Somerset salt-marshes away there on his left. And it came into his mind how strange it was that while he at this moment was shivering with amorous expectation at the idea of entering that yard of half-made tombstones, far off in the Blackmore Vale many old ploughmen, weather-stained as the gates they were even now leisurely setting open, were moving their horses from one furrowed field to another after their midday’s rest and meal. And probably almost all of them had relations who would come to Mr. Torp’s yard on their behalf one day.

“I’ll go to Miss Gault on Sunday,” he said to himself, “and I’ll look around for a place for mother.”