elieved from the fascination of her too-visible
presence, obeyed the summons, and Rufus, seating himself upon a broken
stool, took his hand in moist and quivering fingers, and touching the
warts one by one, recommenced his mumble. It had proceeded for a minute
or so, when a crash, which, following as it did on the dead stillness,
an earthquake could scarce have equalled, elicited a scream from Mrs.
Jenny and brought the wizard to his knees with a yell of terror.

'My blessid!' he cried, with clacking jaws, 'I've done it at last! Get
thee behind me, Satan!'

In terror-stricken earnest he believed that the Great Personage he had
passed all his life in trying to raise had answered to his call at
last. So, though it was unquestionably a relief to him to find that the
appalling clatter had merely been caused by his familiar's pursuit of
a mouse among the crockery, a shade of disappointment may have followed
the discovery.

'Cuss her!' he said, for the third time that morning, and with
additional unction. 'Her'll be the death of me some day, I know her
will!'

IV

A summer sunset filled all the sky above Castle Barfield and its
encircling fields. The sun had disappeared, leaving behind him a broad
reflected track of glory where, here and there, a star was faintly
visible. A light wind was blowing from the hollow which sheltered the
town towards the higher land whereon the rival houses of Eeddy and
Mountain faced each other. Below, it was already almost night, and as
the wind blew the shadow mounted, as if the wind carried it. The rose
and gold left by the departing sun faded down the sky, and settled at
the horizon into a broad band of deep-toned fire, which, to one facing
it in ascending from the lower ground, seemed to bind the two houses
together. Some such fancy might have been in the head of Mrs. Jenny
Rusker, as she went in the warm evening air towards the little eminence
on which stood the long low-built house of Samson Mountain, already
a-twinkle with occasional lights in the gloom, its own bulk cast against
the fast-fading band of sunset.

Mrs. Jenny, hale and vigorous yet, and still a widow, was older by
fifteen years than on the day when she unfolded to Dick Reddy the story
of Romeo and Juliet. Fifteen years was a good slice out of a lifetime,
even in Castle Barfield in the first half of the century, when time
slipped by so quietly and left so little trace to mark his flight.

She passed the gate whi