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 up with a clucking noise destined for the ears of the little mare.

The afternoon was drenched as in a deep golden dew when they reached the brow of the hill over-looking Hale's Turning. Miss Todd's house came first into sight. Beneath it was the white Baptist church; opposite, the extensive acres of Dave Ashmill, bounded by a straggling cedar hedge. Farther on, the maples and elms and fruit trees of the village seemed to be growing in profusion out of a huge basket. The river lay beyond the roofs, mud-red, streaked with silver, broadening out toward the Basin. A wooden barque, her yards all criss-cross, rode at anchor near the mill. There were green stretches of marsh and pink mud flats too, and a shabby little train went rambling and rumbling across a trestle towards the long abandoned shipyard and rotting wharves that had been constructed by Paul's grandfather in the days when all vessels were made of wood.

As they descended the hill, with the warm sun in their faces, Paul had a strange sensation of ownership in this little village, so much more cosy and likeable than the bewildering Bridgetown for all its town hall built of stone, its brick schoolhouse, and a whole street full of shops. Bridgetown was vast and alien and unknowable, whereas Hale's Turning was almost his very own; he knew and for the moment loved every square foot of it. He knew and loved, as never before, every creature that dwelt in it. As they drove past the cedar hedge at the foot of the hill he felt he could almost have been friendly with John Ashmill, the bully who lived in such grandeur behind it. If only the little mare wouldn't trot so fast now!

Mr. Kestrell's windmill flashed in the sun. As they drove past the brown house, Paul caught a glimpse of Walter Dreer, walking along the muddy. His contentment took a more personal turn, leapt to a high