Swithin St. Cleeve lingered on at his post, until the more sanguine¹ birds of the plantation², already recovering from their midwinter anxieties, piped a short evening hymn³ to the vanishing sun.

The landscape was gently concave; with the exception of tower and hill there were no points on which late rays might linger; and hence the dish-shaped ninety acres of tilled land assumed a uniform hue⁴ of shade quite suddenly. The one or two stars that appeared were quickly clouded over, and it was soon obvious that there would be no sweeping⁵ the heavens that night. After tying a piece of tarpaulin⁶, which had once seen service on his maternal⁷ grandfather’s farm, over all the apparatus⁸ around him, he went down the stairs in the dark, and locked the door.

With the key in his pocket he descended⁹ through the underwood on the side of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no traces, by keeping in the same furrow¹⁰ all the way on tiptoe. In a few minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on the other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched house, whose enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks, could be seen even in the twilight¹¹. Over the white walls, built of chalk in the lump, outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if

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