CHAPTER XI

THE SCARRED MAN


It was towards the hour of seven in the evening that I reached the
Abbey Inn at Upper Crossleys, itself among the most hoary buildings of
the ancient village. It belonged to the days when white-clad brethren
from the once great monastery of Croix-de-lis had labored in the abbey
meadows and fished in the little stream which ran slowly through a
neighboring valley. Time had scarred it deeply and the balcony
overhanging the coachyard sagged in a rather alarming fashion as
though about to drop down from sheer old age.

The surrounding country had impressed me at first sight. There were
long billowing hills and vales, much of their surface densely wooded,
but with wide spaces under cultivation and even greater tracts of a
sort of heath-land very wild in aspect and conjuring up pictures of
outlaws' camps and the clash of battling feudal days. Hard by had
resided of old a warden of the marches, and the ruins of his stronghold
might still be seen on the crest of a near-by hill.

From the room allotted to me I could look out over a varied prospect
of farmland and heath, terminated by the woody slopes which everywhere
hemmed in the valley. Peeping above the outer fringe of trees showed
a tower of some old house whereof the rest was hidden by verdure.