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After skirting the little town of Westhope and the gardens of Westhope Abbey, the Drone lays itself out in comfortable curves and twists innumerable through the length and breadth of the green country till it reaches Warpington, whose church is so near the stream that in time of flood the water hitches all kinds of things it has no further use for among the grave-stones of the little church-yard.
The butler received a note from Lord Newhaven the morning after his death, mentioning the train by which he should return to Westhope that day, and ordering a carriage to meet him. A great doctor made public the fact that Lord Newhaven had consulted him the day before about the attacks of vertigo from which it appeared he had suffered of late.
Now these men settled to have ball-play together on Midfirth Water; thither came the Midfirthers, and Willowdale men, and men from Westhope, and Waterness, and Ramfirth, but those who came from far abode at the play-stead. Now those who were most even in strength were paired together, and thereat was always the greatest sport in autumn-tide.
It shunned the company of the other Westhope letters, it avoided the village post-office, but after a day's delay it was launched, and lay among a hundred others in a station pillar-box. And then it hurried, hurried as fast as express train could take it, till it reached its London address, and went softly up-stairs, and laid itself, with a few others, on Hugh's breakfast-table.
"Another cross-bow for Westhope Abbey?" said Hugh, trying to speak unconcernedly, as he followed his host to a back room on the ground floor. Lord Newhaven was collecting arms for the hall of his country-house. "No; much simpler than those elaborate machines," said the older man, turning on the electric light. Hugh went in, and Lord Newhaven closed the door.
Lady Newhaven had returned to Westhope ill with suspense and anxiety. They had met, and the clouds had not rolled away. She vainly endeavored to attribute Hugh's evident anger at the sight of her to her want of prudence, to the accident of Captain Pratt's presence. She would not admit the thought that Hugh had ceased to care for her, but it needed a good deal of forcible thrusting away.
Loftus's time, for whom she had entertained an enthusiastic reverence; at Westhope Abbey, where she had a firm ally in Lord Newhaven, and at several other Middleshire houses.
"I am going to Westhope on business," he said, looking narrowly at her. It was all very well for Dr. Brown to say she must be roused; but how were his instructions to be carried out? "I am a great deal of trouble to you," said Hester. "Could not I be sent to a home, or a place where you go through a cure, where I should be out of the way till I'm well?" "Have I deserved that, Hester?"
Why did he wait two days after he left Westhope? I should have thought he would have been the last man in the world to overstep the allotted time by so much as an hour. Yet, nevertheless, he waited two whole days. I don't understand it."
The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter and the Bird is on the wing. It was the third week of November. Winter, the destroyer, was late, but he had come at last. There was death in the air, a whisper of death stole across the empty fields and bare hill-side. The birds heard it and were silent. The November wind was hurrying round Westhope Abbey, shaking its bare trees.
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