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.
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