“The most evil heap of stones I know in Nevilton,” remarked Mr. Quincunx, moving towards his gate, and making a slight dismissing gesture with his hand, “is the heap in the Methodist cemetery. You know the one I mean, Andersen? The one up by Seven Ashes, where the four roads meet. It is just inside the entrance, on the left hand. They throw upon it all the larger stones they find when they dig the graves. I have often picked up bits of bones there, and pieces of skulls. It is an interesting place, a very curious place, and quite easy to find. There haven’t been many burials there lately, because most of the Methodists nowadays prefer the churchyard. But there was one last spring. That was the burial of Glory Lintot. I was there myself, and saw her put in. It’s an extraordinary place. Anyone who likes to look at what people can write on tombstones would be delighted with it.” By this time, by means of a series of vague ushering movements, such as he might have used to get rid of an admirable but dangerous dog, Mr. Quincunx had got his visitor as far as the gate. This he opened, with as easy and natural an air as he could assume, and stood ostentatiously aside, to let the unfortunate man pass out. James Andersen moved slowly into the road. “Remember!” he said. “You will avoid everything you hate! There’s more in the west-wind than you imagine, these strange days. That’s why the rooks are calling. Listen to them!” He waved his hand and strode rapidly up the lane. Mr. Quincunx gazed after the retreating figure till it disappeared, and then returned wearily to his work. He picked up his hoe and leaned heavily upon it, buried in thought. Thus he remained for the space of several minutes. “He is right,” he muttered, raising his head at last. “The rooks are beginning to gather. That means another summer is over,--and a good thing, too! I suppose I ought to have taken him back to Nevilton. But he is right about the rooks.” CHAPTER XIX PLANETARY INTERVENTION The long summer afternoon was nearly over by the time James Andersen reached the Seven Ashes. The declining sun had sunk so low that it was invisible from the spot where he stood, but its last horizontal rays cast a warm ruddy light over the tree-tops in the valley. The high and exposed intersection of sandy lanes, which for time immemorial had borne this title, was, at the epoch which concerns us, no longer faithful to its name. The ash-trees which Andersen now surveyed, with the feverish glance of mental obsession, were not seven in number. They were indeed only three; and, of these three, one was no more than a time-worn stump, and the others but newly-planted saplings. Such as they were, however, they served well enough to continue the tradition of the place, and their presence enhanced with a note of added melancholy the gloomy character of the scene.