Then he took the bridle in his hand and walked forward, whistling as he walked.
Yet the place and the hour were most unlikely to give him succour.

It was early morning, and he walked across an empty basin of the hills.

The sun was not visible, though the upper air was golden and the green peaks of the hills rosy.

The basin itself was filled with a broad uncoloured light, and lay naked to it and extraordinarily still.

There were as yet no shadows; the road rose and dipped across low ridges of turf, a ribbon of dead and unillumined white; and the grass at any distance from the road had the darkness of peat.