Then he had added, with a crafty twist and wink: "When ye can quarrel with your own bread an' butter with a cat's-paw might as well do it, especially when you're gettin' along in years.

You 'ain't got anything to lose if you do set the doctor again ye, and I have." The house in which the Uphams had taken shelter was in sight of the old homestead, some rods farther on, on the opposite side of the road.

It stood in a sandy waste of weeds on the border of an old gravel-pit--an ancient cottage, with a wretched crouch of humility in its very roof.

It had been covered with a feeble coat of red paint years ago, and cloudy lines of it still survived the wash of old rains and the beat of old sunbeams.
Behind it on the north and west rose the sand-hill, dripping with loose gravel as with water, hollowed out at its base until its crest, bristling with coarse herbage, magnified against the sky, projected far out over the cottage roof.

The sun was reflected from the sand in a great hollow of arid light.