Brendon stood still a long time, in some concern at this unexpected incident. He puzzled himself to know what it might mean, retraced the course of his relations with Weekes during the last few years, and could see no light. It struck him that Sarah Jane might be able to find some explanation. Animosity clearly lurked in the man's temper; but on what foundation it rested Daniel could not imagine. The threat he dismissed without thought, as a futile utterance of disappointment. CHAPTER IX THE MEMORY OF MR. HUGGINS On a day after noon in late January the hand of winter was upon Lydford, and the wet roads ran shining into the village. Utmost sobriety, with a scant splash of colour here and there, marked the time. The hedges were iron-grey, yet they flamed now and again where a copper glow of foliage still clung to some pollarded beech. The great castle scowled down from its blind windows, rain fell drearily; all round about was mire and gloom and low mists, that crept along hill and over fallow. In the meadow-lands grass seemed trodden into mud; the very streets repined, and no life was revealed save where fowls sat in the boughs of a laurel and resigned themselves to sleep and forgetfulness, and where a lonely dog trotted along the main thoroughfare. In an open doorway of a carpenter's shop two men planed coffin planks; and further on came clink of chisel and mallet from a shed where a stonemason was hammering at a granite cross. The only human life visible seemed occupied with death. Each wayside garden was a litter of ragged stalk and stem that cried to be hidden; but the little golden yew, beside the home of Philip Weekes, shone like a candle across the waning day, and rose sprightly and cheerful in the languor and depression of the hour.