With boyish step,
so light and springy that it seemed anxious to run and leap, he took his
way through a suburb south of Thames, and pushed on towards the first
rising of the Surrey hills. And as he walked resolve strengthened itself in
his heart. Somehow or other he would live independently through the next
three months. If the worst came to the worst, he could earn bread as clerk
or labourer, but as long as his money lasted he would pursue his purpose,
and that alone. He sang to himself in this gallant determination, happy as
if some one had left him a fortune.
In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where the dwellings on
either side were for the most part old and small, though here and there a
brand-new edifice on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was
undergoing change such as in our time destroys the picturesque in all
London suburbs, the cheery dreamer chanced to turn his eyes upon a spot of
desolation which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work. Before
him stood three deserted houses, a little row once tenanted by middle-class
folk, but now for some time unoccupied and unrepaired. They were of brick,
but the fronts had a stucco facing cut into imitation of ashlar, and
weathered to the sombrest grey.
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