Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas
Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders
by
… metus ille … Acheruntis … Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo
In two volumes
Vol. I.
To
E. de V.
In Memoriam
"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to theseparts!"
So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still—both hands resting on his thickstick—while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front ofhim and the landscape to either side.
Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broadalluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way tothe estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood,he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked hereand there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots ofblack which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond themosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passedinto the sea—lines more luminous than the sky at this particular momentof a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance,which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down toit from behind a curtain of rainy cloud.
Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from eastto west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peatmoss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough drivendeep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and thefarmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come.Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so thatstrips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches ofpurple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures weredue, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to jointhe rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes andthe streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland fromthe sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blottingout the mountains that stood around its head.
A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty,even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glancetravelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising fromthe marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovelylines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, eachwith its church tower and its white spreading farms—a laud of homelycharm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by theseething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which itclimbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, thehills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich inwood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice—avoice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment ofhis life, than the voice of any human being.
He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back