But he had drunk of the hind's tea, and must say something.
"Your father's place I presume ?" he inquired sleepily.
"No; I am only a servant." "Dutch people ?" "Yes." "And you like the life ?" The boy hesitated.
"On days like these." "And why on these ?" The boy waited.
"They are very beautiful." The stranger looked at him.

It seemed that as the fellow's dark eyes looked across the brown earth they kindled with an intense satisfaction; then they looked back at the carving.
What had that creature, so coarse-clad and clownish, to do with the subtle joys of the weather?
Himself, white-handed and delicate, he might hear the music with shimmering sunshine and solitude play on the finely-strung chords of nature; but that fellow! Was not the ear in that great body too gross for such delicate mutterings?
Presently he said: "May I see what you work at ?" The fellow handed his wooden post.

It was by no means lovely.

The men and birds were almost grotesque in their laboured resemblance to nature, and bore signs of patient thought.

The stranger turned the thing over on his knee.
"Where did you learn this work ?" "I taught myself." "And these zigzag lines represent--" "A mountain." The stranger looked.
"It has some meaning, has it not ?" The boy muttered confusedly.
"Only things." The questioner looked down at him--the huge, unwieldy figure, in size a man's, in right of his childlike features and curling hair a child's; and it hurt him--it attracted him and it hurt him.