The Unknown Quantity

A spatter of late spring rain drummed a harsh tattoo on the leaded panes of a cottage that stood on the edge of the forest, as forlornly alone as a castaway, its feet in an undulating tide of grey-green heather that flowed with imperceptible slowness, and never ebbed. Over it the sky lowered, sullen, menacing, except for a streak of watery orange low over the western horizon where the departing sun had found a misty spy-hole in the rolling storm clouds. For a brief moment it tinged the sombre landscape, the cottage, and the face of the man who stood at a window gazing down a puddled drive that meandered through a belt of sagging firs to a wider road as if distance were a thing of no account; then the conquering clouds rushed in to fill the breach, and it faded; and with their victory the twilight deepened. But the man did not move. A flurry of wind snatched the raindrops aside, leaving a silence broken only by a clock which continued its deliberate measurement of time regardless of the weather and the concerns of men. Night fell.