The expanse they traversed in this manner was possessed of a peculiar character of its own, a character which that especial hour of twilight seemed to draw forth and emphasize. It differed from similar tracts of marsh-land, such as may be found by the sea’s edge, in being devoid of any romantic horizon to afford a spiritual escape from the gloom it diffused.
It was melancholy. It was repellant. It was sinister. It lacked the element of poetic expansiveness. It gave the impression of holding grimly to some dark obscene secret, which no visitation of sun or moon would ever cajole it into divulging.
It depressed without overwhelming. It saddened without inspiring. With its reeds, its mud, its willows, its livid phosphorescent ditches, it produced uneasiness rather than awe, and disquietude rather than solemnity.
Bounded by rolling hills on all sides save one, it gave the persons who moved across it the sensation of being enclosed in some vast natural arena.
Gladys wished she had brought her cloak with her, as the filmy white mists rose like ghosts out of the stagnant ditches, and with clammy persistence invaded her unprotected form.
It was one of those places that seem to suggest the transaction of no stirring or heroic deeds, but of gloomy, wretched, chance-driven occurrences. A betrayed army might have surrendered there.
Luke seemed to give himself up with grim reciprocity to the influences of the spot. He appeared totally oblivious of his meek companion, and except to offer her languid, absent-minded assistance across various gates and dams, he remained as completely wrapped in reserve as were the taciturn levels over which they passed.
It was with an incredible sense of relief that Gladys found herself in the drier, more wholesome, atmosphere of Hullaway Chase. Here, as they walked briskly side by side over the thyme-scented turf, it seemed that the accumulated heat of the day, which, from the damp marsh-land only drew forth miasmic vapours, flung into the fragrant air delicious waftings of warm earth-breath. With still greater relief, and even with a little cry of joy, she caught sight of the friendly open door of the capacious barn, and the shadowy inviting heap of loose-flung oats lying beneath its wall of hay.
“Oh, we must go in here!” she cried, “what an adorable place!”
They entered, and the girl threw upon Luke one of her slow, long, amorous glances. “Kiss me!” she said, holding up her mouth to him beseechingly.