"
Crefton felt that he probably was one of "those," and that there
were moments when it was advisable to be true to type.
He crept back to his room, collected and packed his few
belongings, placed the money due for his lodgings on a table, and
made his way out by a back door into the yard. A mob of poultry
surged expectantly towards him; shaking off their interested
attentions he hurried along under cover of cowstall, piggery, and
hayricks till he reached the lane at the back of the farm. A few
minutes' walk, which only the burden of his portmanteaux
restrained from developing into an undisguised run, brought him to
a main road, where the early carrier soon overtook him and sped
him onward to the neighbouring town. At a bend of the road he
caught a last glimpse of the farm; the old gabled roofs and
thatched barns, the straggling orchard, and the medlar tree, with
its wooden seat, stood out with an almost spectral clearness in
the early morning light, and over it all brooded that air of magic
possession which Crefton had once mistaken for peace.
The bustle and roar of Paddington Station smote on his ears with a
welcome protective greeting.
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