The farm proved, on a nearer acquaintance, to be a little one-storey dwelling built of rough stones, with a roof so covered with a mass of green polypody fern as to completely hide the slate underneath. There was no garden, only a low wall on which the milk-cans and most of the family crockery seemed to be taking an airing; but a patch of potatoes and a scanty half-acre of oats lay beyond the little homestead, roughly railed off to keep out the marauding sheep.