will hardly break the letter. 'Tis all I
have."

The Doctor laughed.

"I fancy not," he replied. "I'd better give you your first week's wage in
advance. You'll need to lay in provisions. There's a general store in
Byestry. Perhaps you'll want to do a little in the purchasing line.
Remember, to-morrow is Sunday."

He laid a sovereign on the table, and a moment later the garden gate
clicked to behind him.

Antony went back into the little parlour.

CHAPTER XIII

A DISCOVERY

The morning broke as fair, as blue-skied, as sunny, as the previous day
had been gloomy, grey-skied, and wet.

The song of a golden-throated lark was the first sound that Antony heard,
as he woke to find the early morning sunshine pouring through the open
casement window. He lay very still, listening to the flood of liquid
notes, and looking at the square of blue sky, seen through the window.
Now and again an ivy leaf tapped gently at the pane, stirred by a little
breeze blowing from the sea, and sweeping softly across buttercupped
meadow and gorse-grown moorland. Once a flight of rooks passed across the
square blue patch, and once a pigeon lighted for an instant on the
windowsill, to fly off again on swift, strong wings.

He lay there, drowsily content. For that day at least, there was a
pleasant idleness ahead of him, nothing but his own wants to attend to.
The morrow would see him armed with spade and rake, probably wrestling
with weeds, digging deep in the good brown earth, possibly mowing the
grass, and such like jobs as fall to the lot of an under-gardener. Antony
smiled to himself. Well, it would all come in the day's work, and the
day's work would be no novel master to him. The open air, whether under
cloud or sunshine, was good. After all, his lot for the year would not be
such a bad one. He was in the mood to echo the praises of that
brown-feathered morsel pouring forth its lauds somewhere aloft in the
blue. Suddenly the song ceased. The bird had come to earth.

For a moment or so longer Antony lay very still, listening to the
silence. Then he flung back the bed-clothes, went to the window, and
looked out.

He looked across the tiny garden, and the lane, to a wild-rose hedge;
fragile pink blossoms swayed gently in the breeze. Beyond the hedge was a
field of close-cropped grass, dotted here and there with sheep. To the
left a turn in the lane, and the high banks and hedges, shut further view
from sight. To the right, an