The day was bleak, and something of this external bleakness was
reflected in the look which he raised to the ivy draped dormer-windows
in the hooded roof. Small greyish clouds were scudding low above the
western horizon, and the sorrel waste of broomsedge was rolling high as
a sea. The birds, as they skimmed over this billowy expanse, appeared
blown, despite their efforts, on the wind that swept in gusts out of
the west. On the lawn at Jordan's Journey the fallen leaves were dancing
madly like a carnival in rough carousal. Watching them it was easy to
imagine that they found some frenzied joy in this dance of death--the
end to which they had moved from the young green of the bud through the
opulent abundance of the summer. The air was alive with their sighing.
They rustled softly under foot as Abel walked up the drive, and then,
whipped by a strong gust, fled in purple and wine-coloured multitudes
to the shelter of the box hedges, or, rising in flight above the naked
boughs, beat against the closed shutters before they came to rest
against the square brick chimneys on the roof.
Beneath the trees a solitary old negro was spreading manure over
the grass, hauling it in a wheelbarrow from a pile somewhere in the
barnyard.
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