CHAPTER VII


Mr. Taynton made but a short meal of lunch, and ate but sparingly, for
he meant to take a good walk this afternoon, and it was not yet two
o'clock when he came out of his house again, stick in hand. It was a
large heavy stick that he carried, a veritable club, one that it would
be easy to recognise amid a host of others, even as he had recognised it
that morning in the rather populous umbrella stand in the hall of Mrs.
Assheton's house. He had, it may be remembered, more office work to get
through before evening, so he prepared to walk out as far as the limits
of the time at his disposal would admit and take the train back. And
since there could be nothing more pleasurable in the way of walking
than locomotion over the springy grass of the downs, he took, as he had
done a hundred times before, the road that led to Falmer. A hundred
yards out of Brighton there was a stile by the roadside; from there a
footpath, if it could be dignified by the name of path at all, led over
the hills to a corner of Falmer Park. From there three or four hundred
yards of highway would bring him to the station. He would be in good
time to catch the 4.30 train back, and would thus be at his office again
for an hour's work at five.

His walk was solitary and uneventful, but, to one of so delicate and
sensitive a mind, full of tiny but memorable sights and sounds. Up on
these high lands there was a considerable breeze, and Mr. Taynton paused
for a minute or two beside a windmill that stood alone, in the expanse
of down, watching, with a sort of boyish wonder, the huge flails swing
down and aspire again in the circles of their tireless toil. A little