She had often been upon it before, but
it had never looked as it did now. The first half-mile went through
fields whose crops were gone. The stubble was sticking through the
grass, and the potato stalks, which ought to have been gathered and
burnt, lay scattered about all over the brown earth. Then came two
miles of moorland country, high, and bleak, and barren, with hillocks
of peat in all directions, standing beside the black holes whence they
had been dug. These holes were full of dark water, frightful to look
at; while along the side of the road went deep black ditches half-full
of the same dark water. There was no danger of the cart getting into
them, for the ruts were too deep to let the wheels out; but it jolted
so dreadfully from side to side, as it crawled along, that Annie was
afraid every other moment of being tilted into one of the frightful
pools. Across the waste floated now and then the cry of a bird, but
other sound there was none in this land of drearihead. Next came some
scattered and ragged fields, the skirts of cultivation, which seemed to
draw closer and closer together, while the soil grew richer and more
hopeful, till, after two miles more, they entered the first straggling
precincts of the grey market-town.
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