More than once he felt like resorting to a well-known expedient to
determine whether he was awake or dreaming. Could all this be real?
The sky was overcast. A cold, damp wind blew out of the north. There
was a feel of rain in the air, an ugly greyness in the road that
stretched its sharply defined course through the green fields that
stole timorously up to the barren forest and stopped short, as if
afraid to venture farther.
The ring of the hammer on the anvil lent cheer to the otherwise harsh
and unlovely mood that had fallen upon Nature over night. It sang a
song of defiance that even the mournful chant of sheep on the distant
slopes failed to subdue. The crowing of a belated and no doubt
mortified rooster, the barking of faraway dogs, the sighing of
journeying winds, the lugubrious whistle of Mr. Clarence Dillingford,
--all of these added something to the dreariness of the morning.
Mr. Dillingford was engaged in lustily beating a rug suspended on a
clothes line in the area back of the stables. His tune was punctuated
by stifled lapses followed almost immediately by dull, flat whacks
upon the carpet. From the end of the porch he was visible to the
abstracted Barnes.
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