His mother had brought him up to go to the lavatory every morning after breakfast. His father had died when he was five years old and he had little recollection of him. His mother had gone out to work every day in the fields and had generally been too tired to give him much attention, but there were certain things about which she had always been strict, and this was one of them. Since he had had a tendency to be constipated as a child, it had meant that he often had to get up earlier than he would otherwise have done to allow time for this duty to be properly performed before he set off to walk to school. In spite of this the privy was in no sense a place of punishment for him; rather the contrary. It was a substantial brick building, and because the ground behind the cottage sloped downhill, and because the privy had two steps leading up to the door, it had in effect two storeys, one containing the large wooden seat and one at least six feet beneath it from which once a year, a door at the side of it being opened, the ordure could be collected. The size of the seat and the length of the drop beneath it had meant that as a child he had had to be careful not to fall down the hole; the slight element of fear this introduced only made the place more wonderful in his eyes. Other boys did not have privies so large they were afraid of falling down them.

Opposite the seat, at a convenient height from the point of view of the sitter, was a small square window, from which could be seen a row of bean poles and beyond the bean poles, and much further away, the woods on the opposite bank of the river towards which the green field beyond the cottage garden continued its gradual slope. This morning the woods were still partly obscured by the mist rising from the river, so that only the tops of the tallest trees were clearly visible.

Spot the dog sat outside the privy, facing the wide misty valley. Lately her master had been thatching ricks in a farmyard some five miles from the village and her day had been bounded by the walk to and fro, so that when the intermittent humming from the little building was succeeded by sounds denoting satisfaction (like many people who live alone, Tom Harker had a tendency to give himself a certain amount of vocal accompaniment), she got to her feet and began slowly to wave her tail, and when he emerged she was ready to dance round his feet in anticipation of their now setting off.

He was in a good humour and did not rebuke her, but when he had removed the rabbit stew from the stove, where it was already beginning to smell appetizing, and stoked up the fire, strapped on his leggings and eased on his heavy boots and his thigh-length coat, he chained her by her kennel and left her. Disappointed, she watched him until he was out of sight, his long stride taking him steadily up the hill, still humming, towards the Park.