mantled, headless goddesses; then the giant beeches would lash
themselves to frenzy, and, stooping, would scourge the ice on Undern
Pool and the cracked walls of the house, like beings drunken with the
passion of cruelty. This was the second mood of Undern--brutality. Then
those within were, it seemed, already in the grave, heavily covered
with the prison of frost and snow, or shouted into silence by the wind.
On a January night the house seemed to lie outside time and space;
slow, ominous movement began beyond the blind windows, and the
inflexible softness of snow, blurred on the vast background of night,
buried summer ever deeper with invincible, caressing threats.

The front door was half glass, so that a wandering candle within
could be seen from outside, and it looked inexpressibly forlorn, like
a glow-worm seeking escape from a chloroform-box or mankind looking
for the way to heaven. Only four windows were ever lit, and of these
two at a time. They were Jack Reddin's parlour, Andrew Vessons' kitchen,
and their respective bedrooms.

Reddin of Undern cared as little for the graciousness of life as he did
for its pitiful rhapsodies, its purple-mantled tragedies. He had no
time for such trivialities. Fox-hunting, horse-breeding, and kennel
lore were his vocation. He rode straight, lived hard, exercised such
creative faculties as he had on his work, and found it very good. Three
times a year he stated in the Undern pew at Wolfbatch that he intended
to continue leading a godly, righteous, and sober life. At these times,
with amber lights from the windows playing over his well-shaped head,
his rather heavy face looked, as the Miss Clombers from Wolfbatch Hall
said, 'so chivalrous, so uplifted.' The Miss Clombers purred when they
talked, like cats with a mouse. The younger still hunted, painfully
compressing an overfed body into a riding-habit of some forgotten cut,