He had reached the turn to Babylon Hill now, and for a moment he wondered whether he wouldn’t take this road and turn off to King’s Barton by those larches! But he decided against it and walked on. When he got to the place where the lane leading down to the bookshop was, he found himself stopping again. “What the devil’s the matter with me?” he thought. “I feel as if a lot of invisible wires were pulling me back to this town! Don’t the spirits want me to take Urquhart’s manuscript to him? Am I like William of Deloraine, in Scott’s poem, with the wizard’s volume under my arm?”

He looked at his watch. It was already half-past eleven. It would be after twelve when he got to the Manor; and the squire would undoubtedly want to keep him for lunch. “He’d want to do that all the more if I gave him back his two hundred! He’d be in a royal good temper with me.”