"I must return." They started to walk inland, but they had taken only a few steps when they both, as though by a common impulse, stopped.

An unfamiliar sound had broken in upon the deep silence of this quiet land.

Borrowdean, who was a few paces ahead, pointed to the bend in the road below, and turned towards his companion with a little gesture of cynical amusement.
"Behold," he exclaimed, "the invasion of modernity.

Even your time-forgotten paradise, Mannering, has its civilizations, then.

What an anachronism!" With a cloud of dust behind, and with the sun flashing upon its polished metal parts, a motor car swung into sight, and came rushing towards them.
Borrowdean, always a keen observer of trifles, noticed the change in Mannering's face.
"It is a neighbour of mine," he remarked.