The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that
Gibbons, the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the
spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him, as he
thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as of a man coughing,
sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself; and looking, beheld
nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear with
that breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a cultivated
man. It grew to a climax, diminished again, and died away in the
distance, going as it seemed to him in the direction of Adderdean. It
lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and ended.
Gibbons had heard nothing of the
morning’s occurrences, but the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that
his philosophical tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down
the steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go.
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