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So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the water that gleamed between the lily-pads.
It led straight beneath the leafless branches, and was beaten smooth and firm, while Winston, who had noticed already that whenever he strayed any distance from the hotel there was a mounted cavalryman somewhere in the vicinity, shook the reins.
That object was a lion! He was couched upon the plain directly in the path they intended to take the very same path by which they had come! How was it they had not seen him before? He was under the lee of a low bush; but, thanks to the locusts, this bush was leafless, and its thin naked twigs formed no concealment for so large a creature as a lion. His tawny hide shone conspicuously through them.
The night brooded her planets, hovering the world, so that life might be. The dark outlines of the shrubbery below showed black and strong. Upon the side of a near-by clump of leafless lilacs shone a faint light, as though from one of the barred windows below. The house was not quite asleep. She stilled her breath as she might, stilled her heart as she might, lest its beating should be heard.
Buildings of different kinds caught and reflected the wintry sunbeams of a December morning, and the woods, though now leafless, gave relief and variety to the landscape. Brown felt that lively and awakening interest which taste and sensibility always derive from the beauties of nature when opening suddenly to the eye after the dulness and gloom of a night voyage.
You can say it is all very painty, the verdure; too painty; but you cannot reject the picture because of this little mannerism of the painter. To be sure, you miss the sheeted snows and the dreamy weft of leafless twigs against the hard, blue sky. Still, now it has come, you cannot deny that the spring is pretty, or that the fashionable colors which it has introduced are charming.
To the right was a leafless arbor, also powdered with snow, and against the white bulked a dark form something like a coffin. Hope out of curiosity went up to it. "What the deuce is this?" he asked himself; then raised his voice in loud surprise. "Lucy! Lucy! come here!" "What is it?" she asked, running up. "Look" he pointed to the oddly shaped case "the green mummy!"
The road was smooth and free of ice, the moonshine thin and bright over the meadows and the leafless trees. I was now honestly done with the purgatory of the covered cart; I was close to my great-uncle's; I had no more fear of Mr. Dudgeon; which were all grounds enough for jollity.
A description of the house and grounds is in order. The location was all that could be desired, and would have been an ideal place of residence if rehabilitated from its sorry condition of neglect. The house faced the north end of Sheridan Park, a glimpse of whose lagoons could be caught here and there among the leafless trees.
"Miss Graeme, my dear," said Mrs Snow, hoarsely, "go ben and sit with your father a while. It will rest you, and I'll bide with Menie here." Graeme rose, and kissing her sister, softly went away. Not into the study, however, but out into the darkness, where the March wind moaned so drearily among the leafless elms, that she might weep out the tears which she had been struggling with so long.
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