The Green Man was luckily not too far from the garage. Arthur walked down a rather pleasant lane bordered with early-blooming hawthorn. “Cast ne’er a clout ere May is out, Arthur quoted to himself, remembering his nanny reciting it when he was a boy. She’d explained that it referred to the hawthorn tree, and not the month, but she hadn’t gone so far as to hint just what a clout might be, and why one would be so unwise to cast it before-times. Arthur had had a vague idea it had something to do with those abominably itchy woollen vests she’d always forced upon him whenever there was an “R” in the month.
The lane was deeply rutted, but, fortunately for Arthur’s footwear, the recent fine weather had dried up the worst of the winter’s mud. Although the breeze was stiff, the air was mild, fille
