``Let un sink as swims, let un sink as swims,''
she was repeating over and over again, as a child repeats a
half-learned lesson. And now and then she would break off
into a shrill laugh, with a note of malice in it that was
not pleasant to hear. Crefton was glad when he found
himself out of earshot, in the quiet and seclusion of the
deep overgrown lanes that seemed to lead away to nowhere;
one, narrower and deeper than the rest, attracted his
footsteps, and he was almost annoyed when he found that it
really did act as a miniature roadway to a human dwelling.
A forlorn-looking cottage with a scrap of ill-tended cabbage
garden and a few aged apple trees stood at an angle where a
swift-flowing stream widened out for a space into a
decent-sized pond before hurrying away again trough the
willows that had checked its course. Crefton leaned against
a tree-trunk and looked across the swirling eddies of the
pond at the humble little homestead opposite him; the only
sign of life came from a small procession of dingy-looking
ducks that marched in single file down to the water's edge.
There is always something rather taking in the way a duck
changes itself in an instant from a slow, clumsy waddler of
the earth to a graceful, buoyant swimmer of the waters, and
Crefton waited with a certain arrested attention to watch
the leader of the file launch itself on to the surface of
the pond.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179