their meaning and their abruptness; the minutes slid
away into hours, and the meadows and fallows sloped away into middle
distance, softly and imperceptibly. Wild weeds of the hedgerow
straggled into the flower-garden, and wallflowers and garden bushes
made counter-raids into farmyard and lane. Sleepy-looking hens and
solemn preoccupied ducks were equally at home in yard, orchard, or
roadway; nothing seemed to belong definitely to anywhere; even the
gates were not necessarily to be found on their hinges. And over the
whole scene brooded the sense of a peace that had almost a quality of
magic in it. In the afternoon you felt that it had always been
afternoon, and must always remain afternoon; in the twilight you knew
that it could never have been anything else but twilight. Crefton
Lockyer sat at his ease in the rustic seat beneath an old medlar tree,
and decided that here was the life-anchorage that his mind had so
fondly pictured and that latterly his tired and jarred senses had so
often pined for. He would make a permanent lodging-place among these
simple friendly people, gradually increasing the modest comforts with
which he would like to surround himself, but falling in as much as
possible with their manner of living.

As he slowly matured this resolution in his mind an elderly woman came
hobbling with uncertain gait through the orchard. He recognized her as
a member of the farm household, the mother or possibly the
mother-in-law of Mrs. Spurfield, his present landlady, and hastily
formulated some pleasant remark to make to her. She forestalled him.

"There's a bit of writing chalked up on the door over yonder. What is
it?"

She spoke in a dull impersonal manner, as though the question had been
on her lips for years and had best be got rid of. Her eyes, however,
looked impatiently over Crefton's head at the door of a small barn
which formed the outpost of a straggling line of farm buildings.

"Martha Pillamon is an old witch" was the announcement that met
Crefton's inquiring scrutiny, and he hesitated a moment before giving
the statement wider publicity. For all he knew to the contrary, it
might be Martha herself to whom he was speaking. It was possible that
Mrs. Spurfield's maiden name had been Pillamon. And the gaunt, withered
old dame at his side might certainly fulfil local conditions as to the
outward aspect of a witch.

"It's something about some one called Martha Pillamon," he explained
cauti