There was a gate just there.

Would he push it, as his wont was?
The grass was growing about it in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years.

An iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the gate-post.

But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing business--an eye which had later received high training as an eye for fastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood had shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without falling out.

The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand upon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was drawn partly open.
At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of destruction.
The bird ceased.