e garrulous Hapgood, appear persons, places,
institutions; lives, homes, activities; the web and the tangle and the
amenities of a minute fragment of human existence. Life. An odd
business. Into life we come, mysteriously arrived, are set on our feet
and on we go: functioning more or less ineffectively, passing through
permutations and combinations; meeting the successive events, shocks,
surprises of hours, days, years; becoming engulfed, submerged, foundered
by them; all of us on the same adventure yet retaining nevertheless each
his own individuality, as swimmers carrying each his undetachable burden
through dark, enormous and cavernous seas. Mysterious journey!
Uncharted, unknown and finally--but there is no finality! Mysterious and
stunning sequel--not end--to the mysterious and tremendous adventure!
Finally, of this portion, death, disappearance,--gone! Astounding
development! Mysterious and hapless arrival, tremendous and mysterious
passage, mysterious and alarming departure. No escaping it; no volition
to enter it or to avoid it; no prospect of defeating it or solving it.
Odd affair! Mysterious and baffling conundrum to be mixed up in!...
Life!

Come to this pair, Mark Sabre and his wife Mabel, at Penny Green, and
have a look at them mixed up in this odd and mysterious business of
life. Some apprehension of the odd affair that it was was characteristic
of Mark Sabre's habit of mind, increasingly with the years,--with
Mabel.

II

Penny Green--"picturesque, quaint if ever a place was", in garrulous Mr.
Hapgood's words--lies in a shallow depression, in shape like a narrow
meat dish. It runs east and west, and slightly tilted from north to
south. To the north the land slopes pleasantly upward in pasture and
orchards, and here was the site of the Penny Green Garden Home
Development Scheme. Beyond the site, a considerable area, stands
Northrepps, the seat of Lord Tybar. Lord Tybar sold the Development site
to the developers, and, as he signed the deed of conveyance, remarked in
his airy way, "Ah, nothing like exercise, gentlemen. That's made every
one of my ancestors turn in his grave." The developers tittered
respectfully as befits men who have landed a good thing.

Westward of Penny Green is Chovensbury; behind Tidborough the sun rises.

Viewed from the high eminence of Northrepps, Penny Green gave rather the
impression of having slipped, like a sliding dish, down the slope and
come to rest, slightly tilted,