and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor standards, was uncommonly good play. 'Steady on!' said his adversary. 'None of your fairy flukes! '
Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down and walked out of the room.
'Why can't you leave 'im alone?' said a respectable elder who had been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval, the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.
I scented my opportunity. 'What's this joke,' said I, 'about Fairyland?'
'’Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale,' said the respectable elder, drinking.
A little man with rosy cheeks was more communicative. 'They do say, sir,' he said, 'that they took him into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks.'
And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly, before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late one night on the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight of men, and had returned with 'his cuffs as clean as when he started' and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, and for many days he would give no account of where it was he had been. The girl he was engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him over partly because he refused, and partly because
