the tree with a billhook in my hand I could hear old Huckett trundling the water-tank along the kitchen garden. Then Aunt Evelyn came along with her flower-basket full of dahlias; while she was gazing up at me another brittle bough cracked and fell, scaring one of the cats who followed her about. She begged me to be careful, adding that it would be no joke to tumble out of such a big tree.
Later in the morning I visited the stables. Stagnation had settled there; nettles were thick under the apple-trees and the old mowing-machine pony grazed in shaggy solitude. In Dixon’s little harness-room, saddles were getting mouldy and there were rust-spots on the bits and stirrup-irons which he had kept so bright. A tin of Harvey’s Hoof Ointment had obviously been there since 1914. It would take Dixon a long time to get the place straightened up, I thought, forgetting for a moment that he’d been dead six months. … It wasn’t much fun, mooning about the stables. But a robin trilled his little autumn song from an apple-tree; beyond the fruit-laden branches I could see the sunlit untroubled Weald, and I looked lovingly at the cowls of hop-kilns which twinkled across those miles that