The clerk who admitted him stated that Mr. Havill was in his private room, and would be disengaged in a short time. While Dare waited the clerk affixed to the door a piece of paper bearing the words ‘Back at 2,’ and went away to his dinner, leaving Dare in the room alone.
Dare looked at the different drawings on the boards about the room. They all represented one subject, which, though unfinished as yet, and bearing no inscription, was recognized by the visitor as the design for the enlargement and restoration of Stancy Castle. When he had glanced it over Dare sat down.
The doors between the office and private room were double; but the one towards the office being only ajar Dare could hear a conversation in progress within. It presently rose to an altercation, the tenor of which was obvious. Somebody had come for money.
‘Really I can stand it no longer, Mr. Havill – really I will not!’ said the creditor excitedly. ‘Now this bill overdue again – what can you expect? Why, I might have negotiated it; and where would you have been then? Instead of that, I have locked it up out of consideration for you; and what do I get for my considerateness? I shall let the law take its course!’
‘You’ll do me inexpressible harm, and get nothing whatever,’ said Havill. ‘If you would renew for another three months there would be no difficulty in the matter.’
‘You have said so before: I will do no such thing.’
There was a silence; whereupon Dare arose without hesitation, and walked boldly into the private office. Havill was standing at one end, as gloomy as a thundercloud, and at the other was the unfortunate creditor with his hat on. Though Dare’s entry surprised them, both parties seemed relieved.
‘I have called in passing to congratulate you, Mr. Havill,’ said Dare gaily. ‘Such a commission as has been entrusted to you will make you famous!’
‘How do you do? – I wish it would make me rich,’ said Havill drily.
‘It will be a lift in that direction, from what I know of the profession. What is she going to spend?’
‘A hundred thousand.’
‘Your commission as architect, five thousand. Not bad, for making a few sketches. Consider what other great commissions such a work will lead to.’
‘What great work is this?’ asked the creditor.
‘Stancy Castle,’ said Dare, since Havill seemed too agape to answer. ‘You have not heard of it, then? Those are the drawings, I presume, in the next room?’
Havill replied in the affirmative, beginning to perceive the manoeuvre. ‘Perhaps you would like to see them?’ he said to the creditor.
The latter offered no objection, and all three went into the drawing-office.
‘It will certainly be a magnificent structure,’ said the creditor, after regarding the elevations through his spectacles. ‘Stancy Castle: I had no idea of it! and when do you begin to build, Mr. Havill?’ he inquired in mollified tones.
‘In three months, I think?’ said Dare, looking to Havill.
Havill assented.
‘Five thousand pounds commission,’ murmured the creditor. ‘Paid down, I suppose?’
Havill nodded.
‘And the works will not linger for lack of money to carry them out, I imagine,’ said Dare. ‘Two hundred thousand will probably be spent before the work is finished.’
‘There is not much doubt of it,’ said Havill.
‘You said nothing to me about this?’ whispered the creditor to Havill, taking him aside, with a look of regret.
‘You would not listen!’
‘It alters the case greatly.’ The creditor retired with Havill to the door, and after a subdued colloquy in the passage he went away, Havill returning to the office.
‘What the devil do you mean by hoaxing him like this, when the job is no more mine than Inigo Jones’s?’
‘Don’t be too curious,’ said Dare, laughing. ‘Rather thank me for getting rid of him.’
‘But it is all a vision!’ said Havill, ruefully regarding the pencilled towers of Stancy Castle. ‘If the competition were really the commission that you have represented it to be there might be something to laugh at.’
‘It must be made a commission, somehow,’ returned Dare carelessly. ‘I am come to lend you a little assistance. I must stay in the neighbourhood, and I have nothing else to do.’
A carriage slowly passed the window, and Havill recognized the Power liveries. ‘Hullo – she’s coming here!’ he said under his breath, as the carriage stopped by the kerb. ‘What does she want, I wonder? Dare, does she know you?’
‘I would just as soon be out of the way.’
‘Then go into the garden.’
Dare went out through the back office as Paula was shown in at the front. She wore a grey travelling costume, and seemed to be in some haste.
‘I am on my way to the railway-station,’ she said to Havill. ‘I shall be absent from home for several weeks, and since you requested it, I have called to inquire how you are getting on with the design.’
‘Please look it over,’ said Havill, placing a seat for her.
‘No,’ said Paula. ‘I think it would be unfair. I have not looked at Mr. – the other architect’s plans since he has begun to design seriously, and I will not look at yours. Are you getting on quite well, and do you want to know anything more? If so, go to the castle, and get anybody to assist you. Why would you not make use of the room at your disposal in the castle, as the other architect has done?’
In asking the question her face was towards the window, and suddenly her cheeks became a rosy red. She instantly looked another way.
‘Having my own office so near, it was not necessary, thank you,’ replied Havill, as, noting her countenance, he allowed his glance to stray into the street. Somerset was walking past on the opposite side.
‘The time is – the time fixed for sending in the drawings is the first of November, I believe,’ she said confusedly; ‘and the decision will be come to by three gentlemen who are prominent members of the Institute of Architects.’
Havill then accompanied her to the carriage, and she drove away.
Havill went to the back window to tell Dare that he need not stay in the garden; but the garden was empty. The architect remained alone in his office for some time; at the end of a quarter of an hour, when the scream of a railway whistle had echoed down the still street, he beheld Somerset repassing the window in a direction from the railway, with somewhat of a sad gait. In another minute Dare entered, humming the latest air of Offenbach.
‘’Tis a mere piece of duplicity!’ said Havill.
‘What is?’
‘Her pretending indifference as to which of us comes out successful in the competition, when she colours carmine the moment Somerset passes by.’ He described Paula’s visit, and the incident.
‘It may not mean Cupid’s Entire XXX after all,’ said Dare judicially. ‘The mere suspicion that a certain man loves her would make a girl blush at his unexpected appearance. Well, she’s gone from him for a time; the better for you.’
‘He has been privileged to see her off at any rate.’
‘Not privileged.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I went out of your garden by the back gate, and followed her carriage to the railway. He simply went to the first bridge outside the station, and waited. When she was in the train, it moved forward; he was all expectation, and drew out his handkerchief ready to wave, while she looked out of the window towards the bridge. The train backed before it reached the bridge, to attach the box containing her horses, and the carriage-truck. Then it started for good, and when it reached the bridge she looked out again, he waving his handkerchief to her.’
‘And she waving hers back?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘Ah!’
‘She looked at him – nothing more. I wouldn’t give much for his chance.’ After a while Dare added musingly: ‘You are a mathematician: did you ever investigate the doctrine of expectations?’
‘Never.’
Dare drew from his pocket his ‘Book of Chances,’ a volume as well thumbed as the minister’s Bible. ‘This is a treatise on the subject,’ he said. ‘I will teach it to you some day.’
The same evening Havill asked Dare to dine with him. He was just at this time living en garcon, his wife and children being away on a visit. After dinner they sat on till their faces were rather flushed. The talk turned, as before, on the castle-competition.
‘To know his design is to win,’ said Dare. ‘And to win is to send him back to London where he came from.’
Havill inquired if Dare had seen any sketch of the design while with Somerset?
‘Not a line. I was concerned only with the old building.’
‘Not to know it is to lose, undoubtedly,’ murmured Havill.
‘Suppose we go for a walk that way, instead of consulting here?’
They went down the town, and along the highway. When they reached the entrance to the park a man driving a basket-carriage came out from the gate and passed them by in the gloom.
‘That was he,’ said Dare. ‘He sometimes drives over from the hotel, and sometimes walks. He has been working late this evening.’
Strolling on under the trees they met three masculine figures, laughing and talking loudly.
‘Those are the three first-class London draughtsmen, Bowles, Knowles, and Cockton, whom he has engaged to assist him, regardless of expense,’ continued Dare.
‘O Lord!’ groaned Havill. ‘There’s no chance for me.’
The castle now arose before them, endowed by the rayless shade with a more massive majesty than either sunlight or moonlight could impart; and Havill sighed again as he thought of what he was losing by Somerset’s rivalry. ‘Well, what was the use of coming here?’ he asked.
‘I thought it might suggest something – some way of seeing the design. The servants would let us into his room, I dare say.’
‘I don’t care to ask. Let us walk through the wards, and then homeward.’
They sauntered on smoking, Dare leading the way through the gate-house into a corridor which was not inclosed, a lamp hanging at the further end.
‘We are getting into the inhabited part, I think,’ said Havill.
Dare, however, had gone on, and knowing the tortuous passages from his few days’ experience in measuring them with Somerset, he came to the butler’s pantry. Dare knocked, and nobody answering he entered, took down a key which hung behind the door, and rejoined Havill. ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘The cat’s away; and the mice are at play in consequence.’
Proceeding up a stone staircase he unlocked the door of a room in the dark, struck a light inside, and returning to the door called in a whisper to Havill, who had remained behind. ‘This is Mr. Somerset’s studio,’ he said.
‘How did you get permission?’ inquired Havill, not knowing that Dare had seen no one.
‘Anyhow,’ said Dare carelessly. ‘We can examine the plans at leisure; for if the placid Mrs. Goodman, who is the only one at home, sees the light, she will only think it is Somerset still at work.’
Dare uncovered the drawings, and young Somerset’s brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill’s head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly in the circumstance that Somerset had not attempted to adapt an old building to the wants of the new civilization. He had placed his new erection beside it as a slightly attached structure, harmonizing with the old; heightening and beautifying, rather than subduing it. His work formed a palace, with a ruinous castle annexed as a curiosity. To Havill the conception had more charm than it could have to the most appreciative outsider; for when a mediocre and jealous mind that has been cudgelling itself over a problem capable of many solutions, lights on the solution of a rival, all possibilities in that kind seem to merge in the one beheld.
Dare was struck by the arrested expression of the architect’s face. ‘Is it rather good?’ he asked.
‘Yes, rather,’ said Havill, subduing himself.
‘More than rather?’
‘Yes, the clever devil!’ exclaimed Havill, unable to depreciate longer.
‘How?’
‘The riddle that has worried me three weeks he has solved in a way which is simplicity itself. He has got it, and I am undone!’
‘Nonsense, don’t give way. Let’s make a tracing.’
‘The ground-plan will be sufficient,’ said Havill, his courage reviving. ‘The idea is so simple, that if once seen it is not easily forgotten.’
A rough tracing of Somerset’s design was quickly made, and blowing out the candle with a wave of his hand, the younger gentleman locked the door, and they went downstairs again.
‘I should never have thought of it,’ said Havill, as they walked homeward.
‘One man has need of another every ten years: Ogni dieci anni un uomo ha bisogno dell’ altro, as they say in Italy. You’ll help me for this turn if I have need of you?’
‘I shall never have the power.’
‘O yes, you will. A man who can contrive to get admitted to a competition by writing a letter abusing another man, has any amount of power. The stroke was a good one.’
Havill was silent till he said, ‘I think these gusts mean that we are to have a storm of rain.’
Dare looked up. The sky was overcast, the trees shivered, and a drop or two began to strike into the walkers’ coats from the east. They were not far from the inn at Sleeping-Green, where Dare had lodgings, occupying the rooms which had been used by Somerset till he gave them up for more commodious chambers at Markton; and they decided to turn in there till the rain should be over.
Having possessed himself of Somerset’s brains Havill was inclined to be jovial, and ordered the best in wines that the house afforded. Before starting from home they had drunk as much as was good for them; so that their potations here soon began to have a marked effect upon their tongues. The rain beat upon the windows with a dull dogged pertinacity which seemed to signify boundless reserves of the same and long continuance. The wind rose, the sign creaked, and the candles waved. The weather had, in truth, broken up for the season, and this was the first night of the change.
‘Well, here we are,’ said Havill, as he poured out another glass of the brandied liquor called old port at Sleeping-Green; ‘and it seems that here we are to remain for the present.’
‘I am at home anywhere!’ cried the lad, whose brow was hot and eye wild.
Havill, who had not drunk enough to affect his reasoning, held up his glass to the light and said, ‘I never can quite make out what you are, or what your age is. Are you sixteen, one-and-twenty, or twenty-seven? And are you an Englishman, Frenchman, Indian, American, or what? You seem not to have taken your degrees in these parts.’
‘That’s a secret, my friend,’ said Dare. ‘I am a citizen of the world. I owe no country patriotism, and no king or queen obedience. A man whose country has no boundary is your only true gentleman.’
‘Well, where were you born – somewhere, I suppose?’
‘It would be a fact worth the telling. The secret of my birth lies here.’ And Dare slapped his breast with his right hand.
‘Literally, just under your shirt-front; or figuratively, in your heart?’ asked Havill.
‘Literally there. It is necessary that it should be recorded, for one’s own memory is a treacherous book of reference, should verification be required at a time of delirium, disease, or death.’
Havill asked no further what he meant, and went to the door. Finding that the rain still continued he returned to Dare, who was by this time sinking down in a one-sided attitude, as if hung up by the shoulder. Informing his companion that he was but little inclined to move far in such a tempestuous night, he decided to remain in the inn till next morning. On calling in the landlord, however, they learnt that the house was full of farmers on their way home from a large sheep-fair in the neighbourhood, and that several of these, having decided to stay on account of the same tempestuous weather, had already engaged the spare beds. If Mr. Dare would give up his room, and share a double-bedded room with Mr. Havill, the thing could be done, but not otherwise.
To this the two companions agreed, and presently went upstairs with as gentlemanly a walk and vertical a candle as they could exhibit under the circumstances.
The other inmates of the inn soon retired to rest, and the storm raged on unheeded by all local humanity.
III
At two o’clock the rain lessened its fury. At half-past two the obscured moon shone forth; and at three Havill awoke. The blind had not been pulled down overnight, and the moonlight streamed into the room, across the bed whereon Dare was sleeping. He lay on his back, his arms thrown out; and his well-curved youthful form looked like an unpedestaled Dionysus in the colourless lunar rays.
Sleep had cleared Havill’s mind from the drowsing effects of the last night’s sitting, and he thought of Dare’s mysterious manner in speaking of himself. This lad resembled the Etruscan youth Tages, in one respect, that of being a boy with, seemingly, the wisdom of a sage; and the effect of his presence was now heightened by all those sinister and mystic attributes which are lent by nocturnal environment. He who in broad daylight might be but a young chevalier d’industrie was now an unlimited possibility in social phenomena. Havill remembered how the lad had pointed to his breast, and said that his secret was literally kept there. The architect was too much of a provincial to have quenched the common curiosity that was part of his nature by the acquired metropolitan indifference to other people’s lives which, in essence more unworthy even than the former, causes less practical inconvenience in its exercise.
Dare was breathing profoundly. Instigated as above mentioned, Havill got out of bed and stood beside the sleeper. After a moment’s pause he gently pulled back the unfastened collar of Dare’s nightshirt and saw a word tattooed in distinct characters on his breast. Before there was time for Havill to decipher it Dare moved slightly, as if conscious of disturbance, and Havill hastened back to bed. Dare bestirred himself yet more, whereupon Havill breathed heavily, though keeping an intent glance on the lad through his half-closed eyes to learn if he had been aware of the investigation.
Dare was certainly conscious of something, for he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and gazed around the room; then after a few moments of reflection he drew some article from beneath his pillow. A blue gleam shone from the object as Dare held it in the moonlight, and Havill perceived that it was a small revolver.
A clammy dew broke out upon the face and body of the architect when, stepping out of bed with the weapon in his hand, Dare looked under the bed, behind the curtains, out of the window, and into a closet, as if convinced that something had occurred, but in doubt as to what it was. He then came across to where Havill was lying and still keeping up the appearance of sleep. Watching him awhile and mistrusting the reality of this semblance, Dare brought it to the test by holding the revolver within a few inches of Havill’s forehead.
Havill could stand no more. Crystallized with terror, he said, without however moving more than his lips, in dread of hasty action on the part of Dare: ‘O, good Lord, Dare, Dare, I have done nothing!’
The youth smiled and lowered the pistol. ‘I was only finding out whether it was you or some burglar who had been playing tricks upon me. I find it was you.’
‘Do put away that thing! It is too ghastly to produce in a respectable bedroom. Why do you carry it?’
‘Cosmopolites always do. Now answer my questions. What were you up to?’ and Dare as he spoke played with the pistol again.
Havill had recovered some coolness. ‘You could not use it upon me,’ he said sardonically, watching Dare. ‘It would be risking your neck for too little an object.’
‘I did not think you were shrewd enough to see that,’ replied Dare carelessly, as he returned the revolver to its place. ‘Well, whether you have outwitted me or no, you will keep the secret as long as I choose.’
‘Why?’ said Havill.
‘Because I keep your secret of the letter abusing Miss P., and of the pilfered tracing you carry in your pocket.’
‘It is quite true,’ said Havill.
They went to bed again. Dare was soon asleep; but Havill did not attempt to disturb him again. The elder man slept but fitfully. He was aroused in the morning by a heavy rumbling and jingling along the highway overlooked by the window, the front wall of the house being shaken by the reverberation.
‘There is no rest for me here,’ he said, rising and going to the window, carefully avoiding the neighbourhood of Mr. Dare. When Havill had glanced out he returned to dress himself.
‘What’s that noise?’ said Dare, awakened by the same rumble.
‘It is the Artillery going away.’
‘From where?’
‘Markton barracks.’
‘Hurrah!’ said Dare, jumping up in bed. ‘I have been waiting for that these six weeks.’
Havill did not ask questions as to the meaning of this unexpected remark.
When they were downstairs Dare’s first act was to ring the bell and ask if his Army and Navy Gazette had arrived.
While the servant was gone Havill cleared his throat and said, ‘I am an architect, and I take in the Architect; you are an architect, and you take in the Army and Navy Gazette.’
‘I am not an architect any more than I am a soldier; but I have taken in the Army and Navy Gazette these many weeks.’
When they were at breakfast the paper came in. Dare hastily tore it open and glanced at the pages.
‘I am going to Markton after breakfast!’ he said suddenly, before looking up; ‘we will walk together if you like?’
They walked together as planned, and entered Markton about ten o’clock.
‘I have just to make a call here,’ said Dare, when they were opposite the barrack-entrance on the outskirts of the town, where wheel-tracks and a regular chain of hoof-marks left by the departed batteries were imprinted in the gravel between the open gates. ‘I shall not be a moment.’ Havill stood still while his companion entered and asked the commissary in charge, or somebody representing him, when the new batteries would arrive to take the place of those which had gone away. He was informed that it would be about noon.
‘Now I am at your service,’ said Dare, ‘and will help you to rearrange your design by the new intellectual light we have acquired.’
They entered Havill’s office and set to work. When contrasted with the tracing from Somerset’s plan, Havill’s design, which was not far advanced, revealed all its weaknesses to him. After seeing Somerset’s scheme the bands of Havill’s imagination were loosened: he laid his own previous efforts aside, got fresh sheets of drawing-paper and drew with vigour.
‘I may as well stay and help you,’ said Dare. ‘I have nothing to do till twelve o’clock; and not much then.’
So there he remained. At a quarter to twelve children and idlers began to gather against the railings of Havill’s house. A few minutes past twelve the noise of an arriving host was heard at the entrance to the town. Thereupon Dare and Havill went to the window.
The X and Y Batteries of the Z Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, were entering Markton, each headed by the major with his bugler behind him. In a moment they came abreast and passed, every man in his place; that is to say:
Six shining horses, in pairs, harnessed by rope-traces white as milk, with a driver on each near horse: two gunners on the lead-coloured stout-wheeled limber, their carcases jolted to a jelly for lack of springs: two gunners on the lead-coloured stout-wheeled gun-carriage, in the same personal condition: the nine-pounder gun, dipping its heavy head to earth, as if ashamed of its office in these enlightened times: the complement of jingling and prancing troopers, riding at the wheels and elsewhere: six shining horses with their drivers, and traces white as milk, as before: two more gallant jolted men, on another jolting limber, and more stout wheels and lead-coloured paint: two more jolted men on another drooping gun: more jingling troopers on horseback: again six shining draught-horses, traces, drivers, gun, gunners, lead paint, stout wheels and troopers as before.
So each detachment lumbered slowly by, all eyes martially forward, except when wandering in quest of female beauty.
‘He’s a fine fellow, is he not?’ said Dare, denoting by a nod a mounted officer, with a sallow, yet handsome face, and black moustache, who came up on a bay gelding with the men of his battery.
‘What is he?’ said Havill.
‘A captain who lacks advancement.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘I know him?’
‘Yes; do you?’
Dare made no reply; and they watched the captain as he rode past with his drawn sword in his hand, the sun making a little sun upon its blade, and upon his brilliantly polished long boots and bright spurs; also warming his gold cross-belt and braidings, white gloves, busby with its red bag, and tall white plume.
Havill seemed to be too indifferent to press his questioning; and when all the soldiers had passed by, Dare observed to his companion that he should leave him for a short time, but would return in the afternoon or next day.
After this he walked up the street in the rear of the artillery, following them to the barracks. On reaching the gates he found a crowd of people gathered outside, looking with admiration at the guns and gunners drawn up within the enclosure. When the soldiers were dismissed to their quarters the sightseers dispersed, and Dare went through the gates to the barrack-yard.
The guns were standing on the green; the soldiers and horses were scattered about, and the handsome captain whom Dare had pointed out to Havill was inspecting the buildings in the company of the quartermaster. Dare made a mental note of these things, and, apparently changing a previous intention, went out from the barracks and returned to the town.
IV
To return for a while to George Somerset. The sun of his later existence having vanished from that young man’s horizon, he confined himself closely to the studio, superintending the exertions of his draughtsmen Bowles, Knowles, and Cockton, who were now in the full swing of working out Somerset’s creations from the sketches he had previously prepared.
He had so far got the start of Havill in the competition that, by the help of these three gentlemen, his design was soon finished. But he gained no unfair advantage on this account, an additional month being allowed to Havill to compensate for his later information.
Before scaling up his drawings Somerset wished to spend a short time in London, and dismissing his assistants till further notice, he locked up the rooms which had been appropriated as office and studio and prepared for the journey.
It was afternoon. Somerset walked from the castle in the direction of the wood to reach Markton by a detour. He had not proceeded far when there approached his path a man riding a bay horse with a square-cut tail. The equestrian wore a grizzled beard, and looked at Somerset with a piercing eye as he noiselessly ambled nearer over the soft sod of the park. He proved to be Mr. Cunningham Haze, chief constable of the district, who had become slightly known to Somerset during his sojourn here.
‘One word, Mr. Somerset,’ said the Chief, after they had exchanged nods of recognition, reining his horse as he spoke.
Somerset stopped.
‘You have a studio at the castle in which you are preparing drawings?’
‘I have.’
‘Have you a clerk?’
‘I had three till yesterday, when I paid them off.’
‘Would they have any right to enter the studio late at night?’
‘There would have been nothing wrong in their doing so. Either of them might have gone back at any time for something forgotten. They lived quite near the castle.’
‘Ah, then all is explained. I was riding past over the grass on the night of last Thursday, and I saw two persons in your studio with a light. It must have been about half-past nine o’clock. One of them came forward and pulled down the blind so that the light fell upon his face. But I only saw it for a short time.’
‘If it were Knowles or Cockton he would have had a beard.’
‘He had no beard.’
‘Then it must have been Bowles. A young man?’
‘Quite young. His companion in the background seemed older.’
‘They are all about the same age really. By the way – it couldn’t have been Dare – and Havill, surely! Would you recognize them again?’
‘The young one possibly. The other not at all, for he remained in the shade.’
Somerset endeavoured to discern in a description by the chief constable the features of Mr. Bowles: but it seemed to approximate more closely to Dare in spite of himself. ‘I’ll make a sketch of the only one who had no business there, and show it to you,’ he presently said. ‘I should like this cleared up.’
Mr. Cunningham Haze said he was going to Toneborough that afternoon, but would return in the evening before Somerset’s departure. With this they parted. A possible motive for Dare’s presence in the rooms had instantly presented itself to Somerset’s mind, for he had seen Dare enter Havill’s office more than once, as if he were at work there.
He accordingly sat on the next stile, and taking out his pocket-book began a pencil sketch of Dare’s head, to show to Mr. Haze in the evening; for if Dare had indeed found admission with Havill, or as his agent, the design was lost.
But he could not make a drawing that was a satisfactory likeness. Then he luckily remembered that Dare, in the intense warmth of admiration he had affected for Somerset on the first day or two of their acquaintance, had begged for his photograph, and in return for it had left one of himself on the mantelpiece, taken as he said by his own process. Somerset resolved to show this production to Mr. Haze, as being more to the purpose than a sketch, and instead of finishing the latter, proceeded on his way.
He entered the old overgrown drive which wound indirectly through the wood to Markton. The road, having been laid out for idling rather than for progress, bent sharply hither and thither among the fissured trunks and layers of horny leaves which lay there all the year round, interspersed with cushions of vivid green moss that formed oases in the rust-red expanse.