existed scattered about among the cottages and orchards. It was at a
hedge-side on the border of one of these isolated patches that the
young stranger, known as an inoffensive, diligent, and exceedingly
quiet young man, set up his hovel. To protect it from the cattle he
made a small ditch before it. This ditch he made very deep, and the
earth thrown out he built into a kind of rampart, and by its outer edge
he put a row of young holly plants, which a good-natured woodman made
him a present of. He was advised to plant the holly behind the ditch,
but he thought his plan the best, and to protect the young plants he
made a little fence of odd sticks and bits of old wire and hoop iron.
But the sheep would get in, so he made a new ditch; and then something
else, until in the course of years the three-quarters of an acre had
been appropriated. That was the whole history, and the pilfering had
gone no further only because someone in authority had discovered and
put a stop to it. Still, one could see that (in spite of the powers) a
strip a few inches in breadth was being added annually to the estate.

I was so much interested in all this that from time to time I began to
pause beside his gate to converse with him. By degrees the timid,
suspicious expression wore away, and his eyes looked only wistful, and
he spoke of his aches and pains as if it did him good to tell them to
another.

I then left the village, but visited it from time to time, usually at
intervals of some months, always to find him by his gate, on his own
property, which he won for himself in the middle of the village, and
from which he watched his neighbours moving about their cottages, going
and coming, and was not of them. Then a whole year went by, and when I
found him at the old gate in the old attitude, with the old wistful
look in the eyes, he seemed glad to see me, and we talked of many