Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/73

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CHAPTER I

Skibberup Church lay nearly a mile from Skibberup village—on the top of a bare, solitary hill, which jutted out into the Fiord. "Kirkness" was joined to the mainland by a low, narrow neck of land, on which only a little pale grass, heather, and a creeping thorn grew, among the sand and stones. The church itself was a very ancient and much dilapidated structure of rough hewn stone, with a brick tower of later date. The whole place made an uncanny impression from its desolation. Round about among the weather-beaten graves were strewn broken tiles, fragments of chalk, and bits of glass; and on entering the church one was met by an icy

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