Just beyond the suburbs of
the town we entered the region of a vast, evil smell which we
verified as that of the decaying fish spread upon the fields, for
a fertilizer after they had missed their market in that great
fishing centre. Otherwise the landscape was much the ordinary
English landscape of the flatter parts, but wilder and rougher
than in the south or west, and constantly growing more so as we
drove on and on. Our cabman kept a good courage, as long as the
highway showed signs of much travel, but when it began to falter
away into a country road, he must have lost faith in our sanity,
though he kept an effect of the conventional respect for his
nominal betters which English cabmen never part with except in a
dispute about fares and distances. We stayed him as well as we
could with some grapes and pears, which we found we did not want
after our lunch, and which we handed him up through his little
trap-door, but a plaintive quaver grew into his voice, and he let
his horse lag in the misgiving which it probably shared with him.
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