THE GOLDEN AGE
ance of dismembered humanity. This man seemed to see the strangest things in our dull, familiar surroundings.
'Ah!' he broke out again, as we jogged on between hedgerows: 'and that field now—backed by the downs—with the rain-cloud brooding over it,—that's all David Cox—every bit of it!'
'That field belongs to Farmer Larkin,' I explained politely; for of course he could not be expected to know. 'I'll take you over to Farmer Cox's to-morrow, if he's a friend of yours; but there's nothing to see there.'
Edward, who was hanging sullenly behind, made a face at me, as if to say, 'What sort of lunatic have we got here?'
'It has the true pastoral character, this country of yours,' went on our enthusiast: 'with just that added touch in cottage and farmstead, relics of a bygone art, which makes our English landscape so divine, so unique!'
Really this grasshopper was becoming a burden! These familiar fields and farms, of which we knew every blade and stick, had done
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