A satisfied smile broke through. "I quite agree. All my life, apart from school. I was born at the farm."

And he felt greatly attached to it and was glad that the child could see the beauty in what was around them. To many the isolated location, the repetition, the lack of the city's entertainment and all that might be hard to bear, and the moors beyond the place might seem desolate and even frightening, but to Tobias, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

He had seen what the city had to offer back in his school days and had found himself completely unsuited to it, and though he had been tempted once to choose a different life, he had known even then that leaving the farm and the life he was used to and trying to make a career in the city would be like a fish trying to live on land.