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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

It was a day, also, of freezing, biting cold, such a day as
sometimes comes in of a Glebeshire May--cold that seems, in its damp
penetration, more piercing than any frost.
The mist came rolling up over the moor in wreaths and spirals of
shadowy grey, sometimes shot with a queer dull light as though the
sun was fighting behind it to beat a way through, sometimes so dense
and thick that standing at the door of the farm you could not see
your hand in front of your face. It was cold with the chill of the
sea foam, mysterious in its ever-changing intricacies of shape and
form, lifting for a sudden instant and showing green grass and the
pale spring flowers in the border by the windows, then charging down
again with fold on fold of vapour thicker and thicker, swaying and
throbbing with a purpose and meaning of its own. Early in the
afternoon Mrs. Bolitho took a peep at her lodgers. She did not
intend to spy--she was an honest woman--but she shared most vividly
the curiosity of all the village about "these two queer ignorant
children," as she called them. Standing in the bow-window of her own
little parlour she could see the bow-window and part of the room on
the opposite side of the house-door.


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