The rain had stopped, but the whole atmosphere reeled of
moisture. Angry-looking, dirty-brown clouds chased each other
across the lowering sky, and there was a constant sound of water,
trickling and gurgling and splashing, in his ears.
An untidy-looking lawn with a few unkempt and overgrown
rhododendron bushes dotted here and there ran its length in front
of the house and terminated in an iron railing which separated
the grounds from a little wood. A badly water-logged drive, green
with grass in places, ran past the lawn in a couple of short
bends to the front gate. On the other side the drive was bordered
by what had once been a kitchen garden but was now a howling
wilderness of dead leaves, mud and gravel with withered bushes
and half a dozen black, bare and dripping apple trees set about
at intervals. At the side of the house the kitchen garden stopped
and was joined by a flower garden--at least so Desmond judged it
to have been by a half ruined pergola which he had noticed from
the drawing-room windows. Through the garden ran the mill-race
which poured out of the grounds through a field and under a
little bridge spanning the road outside.
Desmond followed the drive as far as the front gate. The
surrounding country was as flat as a pancake, and in almost every
field lay great glistening patches of water where the land had
been flooded by the incessant rain.
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