laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning
his back against the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came
to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the
scene, as if considering the next step that he should take.

To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a
duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that
in the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and
halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining
to the scene. This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the
apparent repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so
nearly resembling the torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its
sort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and at the same time to be
exercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even of the forest,
awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually engendered
by understatement and reserve.

The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of ascents
from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It
embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till
all was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky.
The traveller's eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally
settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy
projection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground
of the loneliest height that the heath contained. Although from the
vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was
great. It formed the pole and axis of this heathery world.

As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its summit,
hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was surmounted