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Updated: May 9, 2025
"We don't," said I. "I don't agree at all." "At any rate," he said, "I can't see how a difference of political opinion can affect my ability now to put a new chimney-stack in your house, any more than it has done in the past." "In the past," said I, "political differences were parochial squabbles in comparison with things nowadays. You're either for England, or against her." He smiled wryly.
"Squish squitter squish squish ciss ciss hiss-s-s-s-s-s," went a stream of water swift as an arrow from a bow right on to the gable of the farm-house, and deluging the thatch in a moment, from the broad red chimney-stack down to the eaves, and extinguishing every spark and flake that hung to it.
'Twas cheerier within than without, for the walls were thick and kept the wind at bay, the wood fires were lively with hissing logs, and scarce heeded a chance buffet from the down draught lying in ambush within the open chimney-stack.
"Why, my dear Bunny, I should back myself to swarm up and out without making a sound or leaving a sign, if I heard our hero's key in the lock this moment. After you, Bunny." I climbed up with trembling knees, Raffles holding the rope taut to make it easier. Once more I stood upright under the stars and the telephone wires, and leaned against a chimney-stack to wait for Raffles.
From the chimney-stack of a factory near the river a wreath of gray smoke was flung over the tree-tops, where it broke and drifted in feathery garlands. Across the road a group of three trees was delicately etched, with each separate branch and twig, on the slate-coloured evening sky.
The barred shadow on the lichened stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead, where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from there the cooling breeze came. But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west below the chimneys.
They now lay, stiff and motionless as mummies, roseate as the morn, deceptively innocent, with eyes tight shut and mouths wide open save in the case of Dolly, whose natural appetite could only be appeased by the nightly sucking of two of her own fingers. In the attics three domestics slumbered in peace. Still higher, a belated cat reposed in the lee of a chimney-stack.
But I did not make directly for Higham. The moon was up and the village looked very inviting. Tree and chimney-stack, thatched roof and gable-end cut pleasant shapes of black against the clear sky, and patches of silvery light fell athwart the road on wooden palings and weather-boarded fronts.
He mentally ran over the various necessary repairs on his own property, which could be completed for the sum, and shrugged his shoulders expressively. It was conceivable that the pleasure so given might even be as keen as that derived from a new chimney-stack or a barn! A vision rose before him; a vision of a ruddy head and snowy shoulders, on which the green light flashed and waned.
From innumerable chimneys the curdled smoke gives evidence that the thrifty housewife or, what is rarer in Stillwater, the hired girl has lighted the kitchen fire. The chimney-stack of one house at the end of a small court the last house on the easterly edge of the village, and standing quite alone sends up no smoke.
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