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The Red Redmaynes by Eden Phillpotts
page 90 of 363 (24%)
before the day was done.

His road ran over the cliffs and about him swept brown and naked
fields under the winter sky. Here and there a mewing gull flew
overhead and the only sign of other life was a ploughman crawling
behind his horses with more sea fowl fluttering in his wake. Brendon
came at last to a white gate facing on the highway and found that he
had reached his destination. Upon the gate "Crow's Nest" was
written in letters stamped upon a bronze plate, and above it rose a
post with a receptacle for holding a lamp at night. The road to the
house fell steeply down and, far beneath, he saw the flagstaff and
the tower room rising above the dwelling. A bleakness and melancholy
seemed to encompass the spot on this sombre day. The wind sighed and
sent a tremor of light through the dead grass; the horizon was
invisible, for mist concealed it; and from the low and ash-coloured
vapour the sea crept out with its monotonous, myriad wavelets
flecked here and there by a feather of foam.

As he descended Brendon saw a man at work in the garden setting up a
two-foot barrier of woven wire. It was evidently intended to keep
the rabbits from the cultivated flower beds which had been dug from
the green slope of the coomb.

He heard a singing voice and perceived that it was Doria, the motor
boatman. Fifty yards from him Mark stood still, and the gardener
abandoned his work and came forward. He was bare-headed and smoking
a thin, black, Tuscan cigar with the colours of Italy on a band
round the middle of it. Giuseppe recognized him and spoke first.

"It is Mr. Brendon, the sleuth! He has come with news for my
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