CHAPTER XX.
A DUMB MAN'S GRIEF.
The winter fogs which made London so gloomy did not leave the country sky clear and bright.

All the land lay under a shroud of mist and vapor; and even on the uplands round old Marlowe's little farmstead the heavens were gray and cold, and the wide prospect shut out by a curtain of dim clouds.
The rude natural tracks leading over the moor to the farm became almost impassable.

The thatched roof was sodden with damp, and the deep eaves shed off the water with the sound of a perpetual dropping.

Behind the house the dark, storm-beaten, distorted firs, and the solitary yew-tree blown all to one side, grew black with the damp.

The isolation of the little dwelling-place was as complete as if a flood had covered the face of the earth, leaving its two inmates the sole survivors of the human race.
Several months had passed since old Marlowe had executed his last piece of finished work.