One's common-sense--at least in matters of this
sort--is reduced to a minimum, and imagination with all her attendant
sprites usurps the place of judgment. Two and two no longer make
four--they make a mystery, and the mystery loses no time in growing into
a menace. In this particular case, however, my imagination did not find
wings very readily, for I knew that my companion was the most
_unmovable_ of men--an unemotional, solid block of a man who would
never lose his head, and in any conceivable state of affairs would
always take the right as well as the strong course. So my faith in the
man gave me a false courage that was nevertheless very consoling, and I
looked forward to the night's adventure with a genuine appetite.
Side by side, and in silence, we followed the path that skirted the East
Woods, as they were called, and then led across two hay fields, and
through another wood, to the barn, which thus lay about half a mile from
the Lower Farm. To the Lower Farm, indeed, it properly belonged; and
this made us realise more clearly how very ingenious must have been the
excuses of the Hall servants who felt the desire to visit it.
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