"Oh, dear, I wish it wasn't so muddy." Dot, emerging from old Squinny's
cottage, stood a moment on the edge of the large puddle that was old
Squinny's garden and gazed over the ploughed fields beyond towards the
sinking sun. It was the last day in January, and the winter dusk was
already creeping up in a curtain of damp mist that veiled everything it
touched. She knew it would be dark long before she got home, and the
prospect of sliding about in the muddy lanes did not attract her.

"You were an idiot not to bring a lantern," she told herself severely,
as she skirted the edge of the puddle. "You might have known--but you
never think!"

Here she reached the garden-gate and lifted it scientifically off its
hinges and then back again when she had passed through. Old Squinny's
gate had not opened in the ordinary way within the memory of man. It was
stoutly bound to the gate-post by several twists of rusty chain.

A stretch of waste land lay beyond the cottage garden; then came the
road and then the fields, brown and undulating in the ruddy western glow.
For a second or two Dot considered the homeward path that lay across the
fields. She had come by that earlier in the afternoon, and she knew
exactly what it had to offer besides the advantage of cutting half a mile
from a three-mile trudge. But her knowledge eventually decided her in
favour of the road.

"Besides," as she optimistically remarked to herself, "someone might pass
and give me a lift."