Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had
survived in undiminished vigour and intensity where all else
was dropping into ordered and symmetrical decay. And the
uncanny part of it was that some horrid unwholesome power
seemed to be distilled from their spite and their cursings.
No amount of sceptical explanation could remove the
undoubted fact that neither kettle nor saucepan would come
to boiling-point over the hottest fire. Crefton clung as
long as possible to the theory of some defect in the coals,
but a wood fire gave the same result, and when a small
spirit-lamp kettle, which he ordered out by carrier, showed
the same obstinate refusal to allow its contents to boil he
felt that he had come suddenly into contact with some
unguessed-at and very evil aspect of hidden forces. Miles
away, down through an opening in the hills, he could catch
glimpses of a road where motor-cars sometimes passed, and
yet here, so little removed from the arteries of the latest
civilization, was a bat-haunted old homestead, where
something unmistakably like witchcraft seemed to hold a very
practical sway.
Passing out through the farm garden on his way to the
lanes beyond, where he hoped to recapture the comfortable
sense of peacefulness that was so lacking around house and
hearth---especially hearth---Crefton came across the old
mother, sitting mumbling to herself in the seat beneath the
medlar tree.
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