‘Hog’s my feed,’ said Andrew Hedger.  The gastric springs of eloquence moved him to discourse, and he unburdened himself between succulent pauses.  ’They’ve killed him early.  He ‘s fat; and he might ha’ been fatter.  But he’s fat.  They’ve got their Christmas ready, that they have.  Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and—­the sausages hung up to and along the beams.  That’s a crown for any dwellin’!  They runs ’em round the top of the room—­it’s like a May-day wreath in old times.  Home-fed hog!  They’ve a treat in store, they have.  And snap your fingers at the world for many a long day.  And the hams!  They cure their own hams at that house.  Old style!  That’s what I say of a hog.  He’s good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow.  Everybody knows it and owns it.’

Redworth was getting tired.  In sympathy with current conversation, he said a word for the railways:  they would certainly make the flesh of swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams into the market.  But Andrew Hedger remarked with contempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams:  nobody, knew what they fed on.  Hog, he said, would feed on anything, where there was no choice they had wonderful stomachs for food.  Only, when they had a choice, they left the worst for last, and home-fed filled them with stuff to make good meat and fat ‘what we calls prime bacon.’  As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let him dilate on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour, which roused some distant classic recollection:—­an odd jumble.

They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream.

‘Now ye have it,’ said the hog-worshipper; ’that may be the house, I reckon.’

A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining in spires through a mound of firs, met Redworth’s gaze.  The windows all were blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys.  He noted the dusky square of green, and the finger-post signalling the centre of the four roads.  Andrew Hedger repeated that it was The Crossways house, ne’er a doubt.  Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, shouldering off, wished him a hearty good night, and forthwith departed at high pedestrian pace, manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved anatomy.

There stood the house.  Absolutely empty! thought Redworth.  The sound of the gate-bell he rang was like an echo to him.  The gate was unlocked.  He felt a return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the garden-path, in the shadow of the house.  Here she was born:  here her father died:  and this was the station of her dreams, as a girl at school near London and in Paris.  Her heart was here.  He looked at the windows facing the Downs with dead eyes.  The vivid idea of her was a phantom presence, and cold, assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent.  Had Lady Dunstane guessed rightly, he might perhaps have been of service!