eath leaden and motionless
clouds, it was strange to hear such a tumult of gurgling and rushing
water, and he stood for a while on the quivering footbridge and watched
the rush of dead wood and torn branches and wisps of straw, all hurrying
madly past him, to plunge into the heaped spume, the barmy froth that had
gathered against a fallen tree.

Then he climbed again, and went up between limestone rocks, higher and
higher, till the noise of waters became indistinct, a faint humming of
swarming hives in summer. He walked some distance on level ground, till
there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and
look out. He found himself, as he had hoped, afar and forlorn; he had
strayed into outland and occult territory. From the eminence of the
lane, skirting the brow of a hill, he looked down into deep valleys and
dingles, and beyond, across the trees, to remoter country, wild bare
hills and dark wooded lands meeting the grey still sky. Immediately
beneath his feet the ground sloped steep down to the valley, a hillside
of close grass patched with dead bracken, and dotted here and there with
stunted thorns, and below there were deep oak woods, all still and
silent, and lonely as if no one ever passed that way. The grass and
bracken and thorns and woods, all were brown and grey beneath the leaden
sky, and as Lucian looked he was amazed, as though he were reading a
wonderful story, the meaning of which was a little greater than his
understanding. Then, like the hero of a fairy-book, he went on and on,
catching now and again glimpses of the amazing country into which he had
penetrated, and perceiving rather than seeing that as the day waned
everything grew more grey and somber. As he advanced he heard the evening
sounds of the farms, the low of the cattle, and the barking of the
sheepdogs; a faint thin noise from far away. It was growing late, and as
the shadows blackened he walked faster, till once more the lane began to
descend, there was a sharp turn, and he found himself, with a good deal
of relief, and a little disappointment, on familiar ground. He had nearly
described a circle, and knew this end of the lane very well; it was not
much more than a mile from home. He walked smartly down the hill; the air
was all glimmering and indistinct, transmuting trees and hedges into
ghostly shapes, and the walls of the White House Farm flickered on the
hillside, as if they were moving towards him. Then a change came