His road ran over the cliffs and about him swept brown and naked
fields under the winter sky. Here and there a mewing gull flew
overhead and the only sign of other life was a ploughman crawling
behind his horses with more sea fowl fluttering in his wake. Brendon
came at last to a white gate facing on the highway and found that he
had reached his destination. Upon the gate "Crow's Nest" was
written in letters stamped upon a bronze plate, and above it rose a
post with a receptacle for holding a lamp at night. The road to the
house fell steeply down and, far beneath, he saw the flagstaff and
the tower room rising above the dwelling. A bleakness and melancholy
seemed to encompass the spot on this sombre day. The wind sighed and
sent a tremor of light through the dead grass; the horizon was
invisible, for mist concealed it; and from the low and ash-coloured
vapour the sea crept out with its monotonous, myriad wavelets
flecked here and there by a feather of foam.
As he descended Brendon saw a man at work in the garden setting up a
two-foot barrier of woven wire.
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