Steps of pressed earth led down, and from the hole rose the
quarrelling, fierce voices of three men. She fled back to the car,
determined to find a more genial _cafe_ upon a national road.
The same day, upon another side road, she came on the remains of a
village, where the road, instead of leading through it, paused at the
brink of the river, over which hung the end spars of a broken bridge.
"I will make a meal here," she thought, profiting by the check--and
pulled out a packet of sandwiches, driving her car round the corner of a
wall out of the wind. Here, across the road, a donkey cart was standing,
and a donkey was tied to a brick in the gutter.
Upon the steps of a doorway which was but an aperture leading to
nothing, for the house itself lay flat behind it and the courtyard was
filled with trestles of barbed wire, a figure was seated writing
earnestly upon its knees. She went nearer and saw an old man, who
looked up as she approached.
"Sir ..." she began, meaning to inquire about the road--and the wind
through the doorway blew her skirt tight against her.
"I am identifying the houses," he said, as though he expected to be
asked his business. She saw by his face that he was very old--eighty
perhaps. The book upon his knee contained quavering drawings, against
each of which a name was written.
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