"Thank 'ee, sir."
"Get into the stable and saddle the new brown cob, not Devil Dick. And keep your mouth shut, see."
"I will—sure, Master Jasper."
Jasper went in by the back entry and made his way noiselessly upstairs. He took his pistols and a hanger, and rejoined Tom Stook in the stable. Jeremy and Parson Goffin were arguing together under the cedars, and Jasper left them at it, wishing to get away without being questioned. Coming out with Tom Stook and the cob he took the field path that turned aside under the orchard hedge.
The western horizon was a level band of yellow light, with blue-black hills below and a sky of lapis-lazuli above. The full moon was a great silver buckler on a field of blue. Big stars were beginning to glitter as Jasper and Tom Stook turned down by one of the high hedges with the long grass and weeds brushing their knees. The hedge hid them from Rush Heath, a hedge that smelt of honeysuckle, and trailed the pink sprays of the wild rose over the green of the hazel, thorn, and holly.
Twilight fell as they made their way toward Bramble End, and the world became a world of amethyst and of silver. The Stonehanger uplands were dim and vague in the distance. The colour had melted out of the western sky when they reached the rough track that led to Bramble End. Jasper had mounted the cob, and Tom Stook swung along ahead on his long and lumbering legs, a length of straw still dangling from one corner of his mouth.
Stook's cottage had the shape of a hay-rick. It was built of stone and thatched with heather. A tumble-down shed or lodge stood half hidden by three elder trees that grew close together in the hedge. All about the place lay a tangle of brambles, furze, blackthorn, and bracken.
"I'll put t' nag in t' lodge, Master Jasper."
"Right, Tom."
Jasper made his way to the back of the cottage. There was a piece of vegetable ground here shut in by a low hedge. A yew-tree grew close to the cottage, and a seat made of the rotting tail-board of a cart had been laid upon two logs. Away to the north rose Stonehanger Common, and in the twilight Jasper could distinguish the grey mass of Durrell's house.