he gate. "No one lives there. She
lives in Quarley Manor, just behind."

Denis replied indirectly to the discourteous tone of this speech by
trying with the point of his own foot to dislodge that by which Harold
maintained his remarkable position, and a scuffle ensued, wherein,
though a non-combatant, I seemed likely to get the worst, when their
attention was fortunately diverted by the sight of Tip sneaking off, and
evidently with the vilest motives, towards the covert.

My memory was haunted that day by certain words spoken seven months ago
by Atherley, and by me at the time very ungraciously received:

"Remember, if you do come a cropper, it will go hard with you, old man;
you can't shoot or hunt or fish off the blues, like other men."

No, nor could I work them off, as some might have done. I possessed no
distinct talents, no marked vocation. If there was nothing behind and
beyond all this, what an empty freak of destiny my life would have
been--full, not even of sound and fury, but of dull common-place
suffering: a tale told by an idiot with a spice of malice in him.

Then the view before me made itself felt, as a gentle persistent sound
might have done: a flat, almost featureless scene--a little village
church with cottages and gardens clustering about it, straggling away
from it, by copses and meadows in which winter had left only the
tenderest shades of the saddest colours. The winding river brightened
the dull picture with broken glints of silver, and the tawny hues of the
foreground faded through soft gradations of violet and azure into a far
distance of pearly grey. It is not the scenery men cross continents and
oceans to admire, and yet it has a message of its own. I felt it that
day when I was heart-weary, and was glad that in one corner of this
restless world the little hills preach peace.

Meantime Tip had been recaptured, and when he, or rather the ground
close beside him, had been beaten severely with sticks, and he himself
upbraided in terms which left the censors hoarse, we went down again
into the hollow. Then Lady Atherley returned and gave me tea; and
afterwards, in the library, I worked at accounts till it was nearly too
dark to write. No doubt on the high ground the sky was aflame with
brilliant colour, of which only a dim reflection tinged the dreary view
of sward and leafless trees, to which, for some mysterious reason, a gig
crawling down the carriage-drive gave the last touch of desolati