WHITE DUCK 105 



ever I saw besides pleased me only because it formed 

 a suitable background, or made it seem brighter by 

 contrast or served in some way to set it off. Old red- 

 brick farmhouses, seen at a distance, nestling among 

 evergreen and large, leafless trees, in many cases the 

 deep, sloping roofs stained all over with orange-coloured 

 lichen ; quiet little hamlets too, half hidden beneath 

 their great elms as under a reddish purple cloud ; the 

 endless grey winding road, with low thorn hedges on 

 either side winding with it, leafless and a deep purple 

 brown in colour except where ivy had grown over and 

 covered them with dark green brown-veined leaves 

 silvered with the sunlight. A hundred things besides 

 — red cows grazing on a green field, a flock of starlings 

 wheeling about overhead and anon dropping to the 

 earth ; gulls, too, resting in another field, white and 

 pale grey, their beaks turned to the wind : they were 

 like little bird-shaped drifts of snow lying on the green 

 turf, shining in the sun. For all day long the weather 

 was perfect — a day of soft wind and bright sunshine 

 following a spell of cold, rough weather with flooding 

 rains ; a soft blue sky peopled with white and pale grey 

 clouds travelling before the wind. 



And seeing these things — seeing and forgetting as 

 one sees whatever comes into the field of vision when 

 eyes and mind are occupied with some other thing — 

 the time went on until a little past noon, when I 

 suddenly came upon a new sight which gave me a thrill 

 and held me, and after I had passed on would not 

 allow me to drop it out of my mind. All the objects 



