The bank on the other side of the stream rose sharply and was well wooded.

Above the crest showed the thatched roofs or red tiles of Steynholme, which was a village in the time of William the Conqueror, and has remained a village ever since.

Frame this picture in flowering shrubs, evergreens, a few choice firs, a copper beech, and some sturdy oaks shadowing the lawn, and the prospect on a June morning might well have led out into the open any young man with a pipe.
But John Menzies Grant seemed to have no eye for a scene that would have delighted a painter.

He turned to the light, scrutinized so closely a strip of turf which ran close to the wall that he might have been searching for a lost diamond, and then peered through the lowermost left-hand pane of the small window into the room he had just quitted.
The result of this peeping was remarkable in more ways than one.
A stout, elderly, red-faced woman, who had entered the room soon after she heard Grant's chair being moved, caught sight of the intent face.

She screamed loudly, and dropped a cup and saucer with a clatter on to a Japanese tray.
Grant hurried back to the French window.