In the wan, lingering light of the winter afternoon, the park stood all deserted; sluggishly drowsing, so it seemed, with its spacious distances muffled in greyness; colourless, fabulous, blurred. One by one, through the damp, misty air, loomed the tall, stark, lifeless, elms. Overhead there lowered a turbid sky, heavy-charged with an unclean yellow. And, amid the ruddy patches of dank and rottening bracken, the little mare picked her way noiselessly. The rumour of life seemed hushed; there was only the vague, listless rhythm of the creaking saddle....

The daylight faded; a shroud of ghostly mist enveloped the earth, and up from the vaporous distance crept slowly the evening darkness....