Three Strangers

The clever short story, "The Three Strangers," by English Victorian writer Thomas Hardy, has been skillfully adapted to a rural Appalachian setting. On a snowy winter's afternoon, a farmer and his wife are celebrating the christening of their infant daughter with friends and family. The party is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, a poorly-dressed man seeking shelter from the cold. Soon a second stranger appears. This man is finely dressed but pompous and offensive. The guests are impressed by the humility of the first man, and angered by the arrogance and bravado of the second. Then, a third stranger arrives. He enters the farmhouse, looks briefly at the first two strangers, then turns and runs back into the cold. What unusual, unconventional and unspoken relationship do the three strangers have with each other? The mystery is solved when the guests are sent out into the snowy evening to search for the third stranger.