But sometimes the gift lay in abeyance for weeks, even for months.

That had been the case, as Mrs.Tosswill had told Dr.O'Farrell, for a long time now--to be precise, since March, when, to the dismay of those about him he had predicted an accident in the hunting field which actually took place.
Timmy walked on up the steep bit of road which led to the upper part of the beautiful old village which was, like many an English village, shaped somewhat like a horseshoe--and then suddenly he stopped and gazed intently into a walled stable-yard of which the big gates were wide open.
Beechfield was Timmy Tosswill's world in little.

He was passionately interested in all that concerned its inhabitants, and was a familiar and constant, though not always a welcome visitor to every cottage.

Most of the older village men and women had a certain grudging affection for the odd little boy.

They were all well aware of, and believed in, the gift which made him, as the nurse had once explained to a crony of hers, "see things which are not there," though not one of them would have cared to mention it to him.
Timmy had a special reason for wishing to know what was going on in this stable-yard, so, after a moment's thought, he walked deliberately through the gates as if he had some business there, and then he saw that two men, one of whom was a stranger to him, were tidying up the place in a very leisurely, thoroughgoing manner.
The back door of The Trellis House, as the quaint-looking, long, low building to the right was incongruously named, opened into the stable-yard and by the door was a bench.