He thought, I know, of
the agony of mind this book had cost him; of those long months of
waiting and their deadly struggle, of the hopes which had made all
he passed through seem so well worth while; and the bitterness of
the disappointment was no doubt intensified by the knowledge that
the Major would rejoice over it.
We walked that afternoon along the Bradford Valley, a road which
Derrick was specially fond of. He loved the thickly-wooded hills,
and the glimpses of the Avon, which, flanked by the canal and the
railway, runs parallel with the high road; he always admired, too, a
certain little village with grey stone cottages which lay in this
direction, and liked to look at the site of the old hall near the
road: nothing remained of it but the tall gate posts and rusty iron
gates looking strangely dreary and deserted, and within one could
see, between some dark yew trees, an old terrace walk with stone
steps and balustrades--the most ghostly-looking place you can
conceive.
"I know you'll put this into a book some day," I said, laughing.
"Yes," he said, "it is already beginning to simmer in my brain.
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