CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BARGE
Spring and summer and autumn had come—flowing into one another with that secrecy which, as in the periods of our life, spares us the pain of the irretraceable step—and still a golden tree stood here and there in the hollowed lawns… Snow fell on singing thrushes and golden trees, and when it was over a half moon of untouched grass under a dense hawthorn was as a green shadow on the white land… Then the year paused; there was a swallow still here and there; but again there was snow…
The world had been black and white for many days. The cygnet-coloured sky had been low from dawn to sunset; rarely a cloud dimly appeared in it, seen and lost and seen again, like a slow fish in rippling water. By night the iron firmament had been immense and remote.
Out of doors, as we walked, it was a source of faint satisfaction that we were clothed and fed; and it was easy to think of a less happy condition. We were in a primitive world. In those short days the world seemed to have grown larger; distance was more terrible. A friend living thirty miles off seemed inaccessible in the snow. The earth had to be explored, discovered, and mapped again; it was as it had been centuries ago, and
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