I lit a pipe and waited for the sun. The sky in front of me was tinged with a faint pink. Every moment it flushed a deeper red. I maintain that anyone, not an expert, would have said that was the portion of the horizon on which to keep one’s eye. I kept my eye upon it, but no sun appeared. I lit another pipe. The sky in front of me was now a blaze of glory. I scribbled a few lines, likening the scattered clouds to brides blushing at the approach of the bridegroom. That would have been all right if later on they hadn’t begun to turn green: it seemed the wrong colour for a bride. Later on still they went yellow, and that spoilt the simile past hope. One cannot wax poetical about a bride who at the approach of the bridegroom turns first green and then yellow: you can only feel sorry for her. I waited some more. The sky in front of me grew paler every moment. I began to fear that something had happened to that sun. If I hadn’t known so much astronomy I should have said that he had changed his mind and had gone back again. I rose with the idea of seeing into things. He had been up apparently for hours: he had got up at the back of me. It seemed to be nobody’s fault. I put my pipe into my pocket and strolled round to the front. The cow was still there; she was pleased to see me, and started bellowing again.
I heard a sound of whistling. It proceeded from a farmer’s boy. I hailed him, and he climbed a gate and came to me across the field. He was a cheerful youth. He nodded to the cow and hoped she had had a good night: he pronounced it “nihet.”
“Well,” he explained, “we don’t precisely move in the sime set. Sort o’ business relytionship more like—if you understand me?”
Something about this boy was worrying me. He did not seem like a real farmer’s boy. But then nothing seemed quite real this morning. My feeling was to let things go.
“I want to know to whom it belongs,” I said. “I want to restore it to him.”
“Excuse me,” said the boy, “but where do you live?”
He was making me cross. “Where do I live?” I retorted. “Why, in this cottage. You don’t think I’ve got up early and come from a distance to listen to this cow? Don’t talk so much. Do you know whose cow it is, or don’t you?”