Starvecrow Farm by Stanley J. Weyman

The company at Mrs. Gilson's, impressed by the appearance of a gentleman of Captain Clyne's position, scarce gave a second thought to the doctor's retreat. But to Tyson, striding homewards through the mud and darkness, the insult he had suffered and the feeble part he had played filled the world. For him the inn-parlour still cackled at his expense. He saw himself the butt of the evening, the butt of many evenings. He was a vain, ill-conditioned man, who among choice spirits would have boasted of his philandering. But not the less he hated to be brought to book before those whom he deemed his inferiors. He could not deny that the landlady had trounced him, and black bile whelmed all his better feelings as he climbed the steep track behind the inn. "D -- d shrew! " he growled, "D -- d shrew! " and breathing hard, as much in rage as with exertion, he stood an instant to look back and shake his fist before he plunged into the darkness of the wooded dell through which the path ascended.

Two or three faint lights marked the position of the inn a couple of fields below him. Beyond it the pale surface of the lake reflected a dim radiance, bestowed on it through some rift in the clouds invisible from where he stood. A far-away dog barked, a curlew screamed on the hill above him, the steady fall of a pair of oars in the rowlocks rose from the lake. The immensity of the night closed all in; and on the thoughtful might have laid a burden of melancholy.