CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH RICHARD CALMADY BIDS THE LONG-SUFFERING READER FAREWELL The midsummer dusk had fallen, drawing its soft, dim mantle over the face of the land. The white light walked the northern sky from west to east. A nightingale sang in the big, Portugal laurel at the corner of the troco-ground, and was answered by another singer from the coppice, across the valley, bordering the trout stream that feeds the Long Water. A fox barked sharply out in the Warren. Beetles droned, flying conspicuously upright, straight on end…