Isle of Thorns [antikvár]

Isle of Thorns PART I CHAPTER I an hour after sunrise The newly risen sun was bright enough to wake the sheep, but not warm enough to dry the dew on their fleeces, and the wind that puffed across the Forest made Raphael Moore shiver. Now and then he turned to face the sun and wind, together in the east, and to dream at the clouds which they crimsoned and scattered. No morning cold could prevent this brooding of the heath which rolled up behind him into the bice of Slumber Wood, and sloped down before him into the golden blues of the weald. He had left the road, dark and dew-washed between the Forest banks, and was following a sheep-track through the gorse. Ahead of him a broken chimney stood against the sky, and to reach it he left even the path, and crushed through the tangle of young growth till from a pond, suddenly revealed in a cup of green, the remains of a cart-track led direct to the thicket of alder and thorn from which the chimney rose. Raphael stopped, and deliberately and rather delicately brushed adhering nature from his trousers. He was well dressed, in the simpHcity demanded by country mud. He sometimes reproached himself for his extravagance in having