Audiobook
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
The road that led to two gap had been trot out long before by a herd of cows, who were to say the least relaxed. It wandered along in curves and easy angles, suede, off and up in a pleasant tangent to the top of a small hill ambled down again between fringes of be hung clover, and then cut sideways across the meadow. Here its edges blurred, it widened and seemed to pause, suggesting tranquil bovine picnics, slow chewing and thoughtful contemplation of the Infinite, and then it went on again and came at last to the wood, but on reaching the shadows of the first trees it veered sharply, swung out in a wide arc, as if for the first time it had reason to think where it was going, and passed around on the other side of the wood. The sense of easiness dissolved. The road no longer belonged to the cows. It became instead, and rather abruptly the property of people and all at once. The sun was uncomfortably hot, the dust oppressive and the meagre grass along its edges somewhat ragged and forlorn. On the left stood the first house, a square and salad cottage, with a touch me not appearance surrounded by grass cut painfully to the quick and enclosed by a capable iron fence some four ft high, which clearly said, move on, we don't want you here. So the road went humbly by and made its way past cottages more and more frequent, but less and less forbidding into the village. But the village doesn't matter except for the jailhouse and the gallows. The first house only is important, the first house, the road and the wood. There was something strange about the wood if the look of the first house suggested that you'd better pass it by, so did the look of the wood, but for quite a different reason the house was so proud of itself that you wanted to make a lot of noise as you passed, And maybe even throw a rock or two. But the wood had a sleeping other world appearance that made you want to speak in whispers. This, at least, is what the cows must have thought. Let it keep its peace. We won't disturb it. Whether the people felt that way about the wood or not, it's difficult to say. There was some, perhaps who did, but for the most part, the people follow the road around the wood because that was the way it led. There was no road through the wood in any way for the people, there was another reason to leave the wood to itself. It belonged to the fosters, the owners of the Touch me, not cottage, and was therefore private property, in spite of the fact that it lay outside the fence and was perfectly accessible.