'You want to make friends with him yourself, Ellen! We shall have
you nodding to him next! You are as curious about him as can be!'
said Alfred slyly.

'Me! I never was curious about nothing so insignificant,' said
Ellen. 'All I wish is, that that boy may not be running into bad
company.'

The hay-fields were like an entertainment on purpose for Alfred all
day; he watched the shaking of the brown grass all over the meadows
in the morning, and the farmer walking over it, and smelling it, and
spying up to guess what would come of the great rolling towers of
grey clouds edged with pearly white, soft but dazzling, which varied
the intense blue of the sky.

Then he watched all the company sit or lie down on the shady side of
the hedge, under the pollard-willows, and Tom Boldre the shuffler and
one or two more go into the farm-house, and come out with great
yellow-ware with pies in them, and the little sturdy-looking kegs of
beer, and two mugs to go round among them all. There was Harold
lying down, quite at his ease, close to the strange boy; Alfred knew
how much better that dinner would taste to him than the best with the
table-cloth neatly spread in his mother's kitchen; and well did
Alfred remember how much more enjoyment there was in such a meal as
that, than in any one of the dainties that my Lady sent down to tempt
his sickly appetite. And what must pies and beer be to the wanderer
who had eaten the crust so greedily the day before! Then, after the
hour's rest, the hay-makers rose up to rake the hay into beds ready
for the waggons. Harold and the stranger were raking opposite to
each other, and Alfred could see them talking; and when they came