The thing is deeply weird, William thinks, and with its mixture of man and animal, should not belong to this crossing between a civilised town and the great monotony of nature. It is an obscuring veil between two different places, he feels, though he knows the thought to be nonsensical. His breath quickens and, in the corner of his eye, he sees a crow arc in the sky above them, into his vision and out of it again.

‘Whatever power this crow-man has,’ William says, ‘though I would maintain it has none, it achieves it through its unknowability and its senselessness. It has been placed here to confuse uncivilised men, I feel, who do spend too much time thinking of ancient taboos and unseen forces. Perhaps a Gael has done it, it is in their style.’

‘I do not know what it intends to portray,’ Harold says, gazing up at it, ‘but whatever it is that it does portray, it portrays it very mightily. It does not fit into anything, though it does at the same time seem to remind me of everything.’

Harold’s simple, childlike curiosity gives William confidence, and he begins to set his thoughts in order.

‘I am sure it is some confused appellation of the very word scarecrow,’ William says. ‘Some fool heard the word, and being struck by how it is compounded together believed it was a thing meant to scare, but also a thing of crows and, having too much time, as all fools do, set about fixing it together, and produced this remarkable oddity that he was somehow so proud of he placed it at the entryway of the town where it could not be avoided.’

Harold looks at William, raising his eyebrows. ‘There is no peasant on this land,’ Harold says, ‘who does not know the proper construction of a scarecrow.’

‘You do not know that. Some peasants have not travelled,’ William protests. ‘Most have never even travelled to the towns that are their neighbours. Some have never even gone beyond their masters’ own fields for fear of being killed. Besides, I said I think it Gaelic.’

Harold shakes his head. ‘You are looking for too much order in the universe,’ he says. ‘It is a mistake. You are looking to ease your mind by creating fanciful tales that you believe to be less fanciful than what the world has chosen to put blatantly before you. If you were honest, you would recognise your own sensible explanations are just as fanciful.’

The crow that was hovering above them lands on the arm of the structure, staring at the men out of the side of its head.

‘I know peasants,’ Harold says, ‘and a peasant can make a scarecrow with two fingers in less than half a day. Give them three pieces of straw and a twig and they have it done if they want it. This is not that.’