In terror-stricken earnest he believed that the Great Personage he had passed all his life in trying to raise had answered to his call at last. So, though it was unquestionably a relief to him to find that the appalling clatter had merely been caused by his familiar’s pursuit of a mouse among the crockery, a shade of disappointment may have followed the discovery. ‘Cuss her!’ he said, for the third time that morning, and with additional unction. ‘Her’ll be the death of me some day, I know her will!’ IV A summer sunset filled all the sky above Castle Barfield and its encircling fields. The sun had disappeared, leaving behind him a broad reflected track of glory where, here and there, a star was faintly visible. A light wind was blowing from the hollow which sheltered the town towards the higher land whereon the rival houses of Eeddy and Mountain faced each other. Below, it was already almost night, and as the wind blew the shadow mounted, as if the wind carried it. The rose and gold left by the departing sun faded down the sky, and settled at the horizon into a broad band of deep-toned fire, which, to one facing it in ascending from the lower ground, seemed to bind the two houses together. Some such fancy might have been in the head of Mrs. Jenny Rusker, as she went in the warm evening air towards the little eminence on which stood the long low-built house of Samson Mountain, already a-twinkle with occasional lights in the gloom, its own bulk cast against the fast-fading band of sunset. Mrs. Jenny, hale and vigorous yet, and still a widow, was older by fifteen years than on the day when she unfolded to Dick Reddy the story of Romeo and Juliet. Fifteen years was a good slice out of a lifetime, even in Castle Barfield in the first half of the century, when time slipped by so quietly and left so little trace to mark his flight. She passed the gate which opened on the public road, and entered the Mountain domain. The air was so still that the bubble of the boundary brook was clearly audible a hundred yards away, with nothing to accent it but the slow heavy flap of a late crow, winging his reluctant flight homewards, and save for him, sky and earth alike seemed empty of life, and delivered wholly to the clinging peace of evening. So that when Mrs. Jenny came to the only clump of trees in her line of progress between the gate and the house the little scream of surprise with which she found herself suddenly face to face with an unexpected human figure was justified. ‘Sh-h-h! ‘said the figure’s owner. ‘Don’t you know me, Aunt Jenny?’ ‘Dick!’ said Mrs. Jenny, peering at him. ‘So it is. You welly frightened the life out o’ me. What brings you here, of all places in the world?’ ‘Can’t you guess?’ asked Dick. He was tall and broad-shouldered now, an admirable fulfilment of the physical promise of his boyhood, and far overtopped Mrs. Rusker. ‘It isn’t for the first time.’ ‘I feared not,’ said the old woman. ‘You was allays main venturesome.’