Quicksands

Quicksands
By B. M. CROKER Author of “The Cat’s Paw,” etc.
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
One sultry September afternoon, some years ago, my brother Ronald and I, being tired and dusty, found a temporary resting-place on the parapet of a little old bridge that spanned a sleepy stream. Through a thin silk blouse a comforting sun beat upon my back, and I was serenely conscious of an unusual sense of happiness and well-being—though I owed little to my surroundings. In all England it would have been difficult to find a more featureless and monotonous outlook than the prospect that lay stretched before us. A series of flat, marshy fields, exhibiting here a space of willowy green, and there a patch of black soil, enclosed by ragged hedges or deep, dark dykes. Occasionally a few lonely and distorted trees, or a humped-up cluster of red roofs, varied the scene, which gradually faded until sky and horizon seemed to melt away into one pale blur.
“What a region!” exclaimed Ronnie, as he tossed away the stump of a cigarette. “The back of beyond, the Land of Never Never! Never again, so far as I am concerned! Who discovered it?”
“It was discovered by the Danes, I believe,” I answered; “they say it was once under the sea.”
“A pity it did not stay there!”
“It’s rather cheerful now, and the air is splendid; but you should see it in winter, when it has a grey, weird, starving sort of look, and the face of the country is like a dead thing.”
“Well, thank goodness, I am spared that,” rejoined Ronnie. “I shall be out in the nice sultry East, sunning myself among the big red boulders that are scattered round Secunderabad.”
“And you start on Friday? Oh, Ronnie, I believe you are glad to go back!”
“Yes; I am jolly glad, only for leaving you, old girl—and in such a hole as Beke. My leave has gone like a flash; just a month at home. I must say it is a beastly shame they did not ask you to Torrington when I was there.”