|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
Upwards in long sinuous bends the road wound its way into the heart of the hills. The man, steadily climbing to the summit, changed hands upon the bicycle he was pushing and wiped the sweat from his grimy forehead. It had been a grey morning when he had left, with no promise of this burst of streaming sunshine. Yet the steep hill troubled him but little--he stepped blithely forward with little sign of fatigue. Once he paused to gather a little clump of primroses, and once to stoop down and admire a few shoots of soft green bracken springing up by the roadside. His workman's clothes, open at the throat, showed him the possessor of a magnificent pair of shoulders, the suggestion of great physical strength was carried out also in his hard, clean cut features and deep set piercing grey eyes. He passed a spinny where the ground was blue with budding hyacinths, and he loitered for a moment, leaning upon the saddle of his bicycle, and gazing up the sunlit grade. A line or two of Keats sprang to his lips. As he uttered them a transfiguring change swept across his face, still black in patches as though from grimy labour. His hard, straight mouth relaxed into a very pleasant curve, a softer light flashed in his steely eyes. A tiny rabbit scudded across the grass grown path and disappeared down a friendly hole. He smiled at its frantic haste, and presently resumed his climb. He reached a wooden gate at last on his right hand side, and pushing it open skirted a grey stone wall until he came to a sudden dip in the field, and with its back against a rocky eminence a tiny cottage built of the stones which lay in heaps about the turf. He leaned his bicycle against the wall, and taking a key from his pocket unlocked the door...