not detect any evidence of
movement in the shadow patch. The voices, too, had ceased; so that
presently it occurred to me that the speakers must have withdrawn
along a narrow lane which I had observed during the evening and which
communicated with a footpath across the meadows.

I realized that my heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. So
powerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind by
this possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream which
had preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth of
the night) I closed both lattices and drew the curtains.

Whether as a result of thus excluding the moonlight or because of some
other reason I know not, but I soon fell into a sound sleep from which
I did not awaken until the chambermaid knocked at the door at eight
o'clock. Neither did I experience any return of those terrifying
nightmares which had disturbed my slumbers earlier in the night.

My breakfast despatched, I smoked a pipe on the bench in the porch,
and Mr. Martin, who evidently had few visitors, became almost
communicative. Undesirable patrons, he gave me to understand, had done
his business much harm. By dint of growls and several winks he sought
to enlighten me respecting the identity of these tradekillers. But I
was no wiser on the point at the end of his exposition than I had been
at the beginning.

"Things ain't right in these parts," he concluded, and thereupon
retired within doors.

Certainly, whatever the reason might be, the village even in broad
daylight retained that indefinable aspect of neglect, of loneliness.
Many of the cottages were of very early date--and many were empty. A
deserted mill stood at one end of the village street, having something
very mournful and depressing about it, with its black, motionless
wings outspread against the blue sky like those of a great bat
transfixed.

There were rich-looking meadows no great way from the village, but
these, I learned, formed part of the property of Farmer Hines, and
Farmer Hines was counted an inhabitant of the next parish. It was,
then, this particular country about Upper Crossleys over which the
cloud hung; and I wondered if the district had been one of
those--growing rare nowadays--which had flourished under the
protection of the "big house" and had decayed with the decay of the
latter. It had been a common enough happening in the old days, and I
felt disposed to adopt this explanation.