Now and then a flock of wild ducks
whirred past, making for the marshes or the innumerable lakes that
vitalised the expanse, or buzzards hunched heavily along, frightened from
some far resort by eager sportsmen.
That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were
houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls' habitations.
Many of the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some had
trees, and others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity,
everywhere the strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been
straining on the leash.
Yet there was one spot where it seemed that deadness made encampment. It
could not be seen in the sweep of the eye, you must have travelled and
looked vigilantly to find it; but it was there--a lake shimmering in the
eager sun, washing against a reedy shore, a little river running into the
reedy lake at one end and out at, the other, a small, dilapidated house
half hid in a wood that stretched for half a mile or so upon a rising
ground. In front of the house, not far from the lake, a man was lying
asleep upon the ground, a rough felt hat drawn over his eyes.
Like the house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed,
demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered.
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