Next morning Mr Cantor had his breakfast with the Lone Piners in the dining-room. He beamed at them all when he came in and was still very bright and clean and shining. He was dressed in a rather remarkable greenish tweed suit, the jacket of which looked quite nice, but when Dickie and Tom noticed his very thin legs sticking out from a pair of baggy breeches and caught each other's eye, they both had to stifle their laughter. Dickie then choked over his porridge, Jenny began to giggle at the sight of his struggles, and Penny said far too loudly, "I do think you might share the joke."

The situation was saved by the innocent subject of the disturbance.

"And what are you all going to do today? The weather looks and feels extremely seasonable, and as I have a slight cold I believe I may stay in for the present... But surely some of you will be out exploring?"

"I expect we shall, sir," David answered. "We don't know what we shall do this morning, but directly after dinner we're going off to a farm called Bury Fields."

"Indeed? And may I ask why you are going and whether you know where it is?"

David opened his mouth to answer, but changed his mind as Peter kicked his ankle sharply under the table.

"Just some friends of ours, Mr Cantor," she said. "And we shall know how to find it, thank you."

Mr Cantor put down his knife, looked at her over the top of his glasses, but said nothing else. After he had finished his breakfast and left the room Penny said, "I think you were rude to him, Peter."

"Maybe," Peter replied tersely, "but I didn't like the way he said 'And may I ask why?' I expect he's a nice man really, but what we do is nothing to do with him."

The sun was bright but the weather bitterly cold when, after an early dinner, the Lone Piners set off together over the bridge and up a winding lane that climbed steeply for a mile. When at the top they paused for breath and turned round they could see Clun and its castle on the hill like a toy town below them.