My breakfast despatched, I smoked a pipe on the bench in the porch, and Mr. Martin, who evidently had few visitors, became almost communicative.  Undesirable patrons, he gave me to understand, had done his business much harm.  By dint of growls and several winks he sought to enlighten me respecting the identity of these tradekillers.  But I was no wiser on the point at the end of his exposition than I had been at the beginning.

“Things ain’t right in these parts,” he concluded, and thereupon retired within doors.

Certainly, whatever the reason might be, the village even in broad daylight retained that indefinable aspect of neglect, of loneliness.  Many of the cottages were of very early date—­and many were empty.  A deserted mill stood at one end of the village street, having something very mournful and depressing about it, with its black, motionless wings outspread against the blue sky like those of a great bat transfixed.

There were rich-looking meadows no great way from the village, but these, I learned, formed part of the property of Farmer Hines, and Farmer Hines was counted an inhabitant of the next parish.  It was, then, this particular country about Upper Crossleys over which the cloud hung; and I wondered if the district had been one of those—­growing rare nowadays—­which had flourished under the protection of the “big house” and had decayed with the decay of the latter.  It had been a common enough happening in the old days, and I felt disposed to adopt this explanation.

My brief survey completed, then, I returned to the Abbey Inn for my stick and camera, and set out forthwith for Friar’s Park.

From certain atmospherical indications which I had observed, I had anticipated a return of the electrical storm which a few days before had interrupted the extraordinary heat-wave.  And now as I left the village behind and came out on the dusty highroad a faint breeze greeted me—­and afar off I discerned a black cloud low down upon the distant hills.

CHAPTER XIII

DR. DAMAR GREEFE

As the crow flies Friar’s Park was less than two miles from the Abbey Inn; but the road, which according to a sign-board led “to Hainingham,” followed a tortuous course through the valley, and when at last I came to what I assumed to be the gate-lodge, a thunderous ebony cloud crested the hill-top above, and its edge, catching the burning rays of the sun, glowed fiercely like the pall of Avalon in the torchlight.  Through the dense ranks of firs cloaking the slopes a breeze presaging the coming storm whispered evilly, and here in the hollow the birds were still.

I stared rather blankly at the ivy-covered lodge, which, if appearances were to be trusted, was unoccupied.  But I pushed open the iron gate and tugged at a ring which was suspended from the wall.  A discordant clangor rewarded my efforts, the cracked note of a bell which spoke from somewhere high up in the building, that seemed to be buffeted to and fro from fir to fir, until it died away, mournfully, in some place of shadows far up the slope.