Quicksands

One sultry September afternoon some years ago my brother Ronald and I being tired and dusty found a temporary resting-place on the parapet of a little old bridge that spanned a sleepy stream. Through a thin silk blouse a comforting sun beat upon my back and I was serenely conscious of an unusual sense of happiness and well-being—though I owed little to my surroundings. In all England it would have been difficult to find a more featureless and monotonous outlook than the prospect that lay stretched before us.