The most characteristic thing, as we have noted, in the scenery of Nevilton, is its prevalent weight of heavy oppressive moisture. For some climatic or geographical reason the foliage of the place seems chillier, damper, and more filled with oozy sap, than in other localities of the West of England. Though there may have been no rain for weeks--as there had been none this particular June--the woods in this district always give one the impression of retaining an inordinate reserve of atmospheric moisture. It is this moisture, this ubiquitous dampness, that to a certain type of sun-loving nature makes the region so antipathetic, so disintegrating. Such persons have constantly the feeling of being dragged earthward by some steady centripedal pull, against which they struggle in vain. Earthward they are pulled, and the earth, that seems waiting to receive them, breathes heavy damp breaths of in-drawing voracity, like the mouth of some monster of the slime. And if this is true of the general conditions of Nevilton geography, it is especially and accumulatively true of Nevil’s Gully, which, for some reason or other, is a very epitome of such sinister gravitation. If one’s latent mortality feels the drag of its clayish affinity in all quarters of this district, in Nevil’s Gully it becomes conscious of such oppression as a definite demonic presence. For above the Gully and above the cottages to which the Gully leads, the umbrageous mass of entangled leafiness hangs, fold upon fold, as if it had not known the woodman’s axe since the foot of man first penetrated these recesses. The beeches, to which reference has been made, are overtopped on the higher ground by ashes and sycamores, and these, in their turn, are surmounted, on the highest level of all, by colossal Scotch firs, whose forlorn grandeur gives the cottages their name. Philip hurried, in the growing darkness, across the sepulchral gully, and pushed open the gate of the secluded cattle-yard which was the original cause of this human hamlet. The houses of men in rural districts follow the habitations of beasts. Where cattle and the stacks that supply their food can conveniently be located, there must the dwelling be of those whose business it is to tend them. The convenience of Wild Pine as a site for a spacious and protected farm-yard was sufficient reason for the erection of a human shelter for the hands by whose labour such places are maintained. He crossed the yard with quick steps. A light burned in one of the sheds, throwing a fitful flicker upon the heaps of straw and the pools of dung-coloured water. Some animal, there--a horse or a cow or a pig--was probably giving birth to young. From the farm-yard he emerged into the cottage-garden, and stumbling across this, he knocked at the first door he reached. There was not the least sound in answer. Dead unbroken stillness reigned, except for an intermittent shuffling and stamping from the watcher or the watched in the farm-yard behind.