His
reasoning powers could no longer afford to dismiss these
old-wives' threats as empty bickerings. The household at
Mowsle Barton lay under the displeasure of a vindictive old
woman who seemed able to materialize her personal spites in
a very practical fashion, and there was no saying what form
her revenge for three drowned ducks might not take. As a
member of the household Crefton might find himself involved
in some general and highly disagreeable visitation of Martha
Pillamon's wrath. Of course he knew that he was giving way
to absurd fancies, but the behaviour of the spirit-lamp
kettle and the subsequent scene at the pond had considerably
unnerved him. And the vagueness of his alarm added to its
terrors; when once you have taken the Impossible into your
calculations its possibilities become practically limitless.
Crefton rose at his usual early hour the next morning,
after one of the least restful nights he had spent at the
farm. His sharpened senses quickly detected that subtle
atmosphere of things-being-not-altogether well that hangs
over a stricken household. The cows had been milked, but
they stood huddled about in the yard, waiting impatiently to
be driven out afield, and the poultry kept up an importunate
querulous reminder of deferred feeding-time; the yard pump,
which usually made discordant music at frequent intervals
during the early morning, was today ominously silent.
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