sually amiable attitude, was inclined
to accredit others with a like share of good temper. Moreover, the
natural man in him cried increasingly loudly for food and bed.

John Knott was not given to sentimental rhapsodies over the beauties of
nature. Like other beauties she had her dirty enough moods, he thought.
Still, in his own half-snarling fashion, he dearly loved this forest
country in which he had been born and bred, while he was too keen a
sportsman to be unobservant of any aspect of wind and weather, any
movement of bird or beast. With the collar of his long drab
driving-coat turned up about his ears, and the stem of a well-coloured
meerschaum pipe between his teeth, he sat huddled together in the high,
swinging gig, with Timothy, the weazel-faced, old groom by his side,
while the drama of the opening day unfolded itself before his somewhat
critical gaze. He noted that it would be fine, though windy. In the
valley, over the Long Water, spread beds of close, white mist. The blue
of the upper sky was crossed by curved windows of flaky, opalescent
cloud. In the east, above the dusky rim of the fir woods on the edge of
the high-lying tableland, stretched a blinding blaze of rose-saffron,
shading through amber into pale primrose colour above. The massive
house front, and the walls fencing the three sides of the square
enclosure before it, with the sexagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses at
either corner, looked pale and unsubstantial in that diffused,
unearthly light. At the head of the elm avenue, passing through the
high, wrought-iron gates and along the carriage drive which skirts the
said enclosure,--the great, square grass plot on the right hand, the
red wall of the kitchen gardens on the left,--Dr. Knott had the reins
nearly jerked out of his hand. The mare started and swerved, grazing
the off wheel against the brickwork, and stopped, her head in the air,
her ears pricked, her nostrils dilated showing the red.

"Hullo, old girl, what's up? Seen a ghost?" he said, drawing the whip
quietly across the hollow of her back.

But the mare only braced herself more stiffly, refusing to move, while
she trembled and broke into a sudden sweat. The doctor was interested
and looked about him. He would first find the cause of her queer
behaviour, and give her a good dressing down afterwards if she deserved
it.

The smooth, slightly up-sloping lawn was powdered with innumerable
dewdrops. In the centre of it, neck outstretched,