"
Full of many thoughts, and tired out with my journey, I went up to bed, in
the same loft with the cobbler and his wife, and fell asleep, and dreamt of
Lillian.
* * * * *
About eight o'clock the next morning I started forth with my guide, the
shoemaker, over as desolate a country as men can well conceive. Not a house
was to be seen for miles, except the knot of hovels which we had left,
and here and there a great dreary lump of farm-buildings, with its yard
of yellow stacks. Beneath our feet the earth was iron, and the sky iron
above our heads. Dark curdled clouds, "which had built up everywhere an
under-roof of doleful grey," swept on before the bitter northern wind,
which whistled through the low leafless hedges and rotting wattles, and
crisped the dark sodden leaves of the scattered hollies, almost the only
trees in sight.
We trudged on, over wide stubbles, with innumerable weeds; over wide
fallows, in which the deserted ploughs stood frozen fast; then over clover
and grass, burnt black with frost; then over a field of turnips, where we
passed a large fold of hurdles, within which some hundred sheep stood, with
their heads turned from the cutting blast.
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