THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The rain had ceased and the narrow valley was deserted. I paused a moment when I reached the bottom, watching how the mill leat rushed out clear and sparkling from beneath the wet blossoms of a hawthorn. A rather wild brown light fell from the thunderous sky. The low church tower looked wan and shadowy. The sheep upon the heights were bleating still. The place had a strange aspect of solitude, of aloofness from the world, which made its beauty rather eerie, so that when the lightning began to play once more upon the hilltops, and an occasional sharp crack of thunder rattled round the crags, the sense of awe which it brought with it was but in keeping with all the impressions of that lonely spot, and I climbed up the steep and weary hill with a consciousness of pleasure in the keener air which chased away the thick fancies begotten in the valley bottom.

Norway/Highways, 1899