upon a curtain of old blue velvet. He cast once
more, and met his last strike, a heavy jar that broke
the weakened line, in a broad, still expanse where
white moths fluttered above the water in a cold, stagnant
gloom. He saw the rotting wall of a primitive
dam, the crumbling, fallen sides of a rude mill.
Night fell augustly. The whippoorwills cried faint
and distant.

He sat on a log, draining his shoes, pressing the
water from his trousers, and smoked while the light
of the moon brightened into a silvery radiance in
which objects, trees, were greyly visible; reaches
sank into soft obscurity. He recognized his position
from the ruined mill -- he was on the edge of that
farm of Pompey Hollidew's of which Bartamon had
spoken. Hollidew, he knew, seldom visited his outlying
acres, then only in the collection of rents or
profits -- they lay too far from his iron chest, from
the communication of the Stenton banks. Gordon
knew Sim Caley, and, suddenly, he decided to visit
him; the trout would afford the Caleys and himself
an ample repast.

He crossed the road, made his way through a fragrant
tangle of field grass, over shorn and orderly
acres of grazing. The moon rose higher, grew
brighter; the vistas were clear, unreal, the shadows
like spilled ink. The house toward which he moved
stood sharply defined, and enclosed by a fence, flow-

[[115]]

p114 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p115w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p116

v?