A Damaged Reputation by Harold Bindloss

Brooke was very wet and physically weary, which in part accounted for his dejected state of mind, when he led his jaded horse up the last few rods of climbing trail that crossed the big divide. It had just ceased raining, and the slippery rock ran water, while a cold wind, which set him shivering, shook a doleful wailing out of the scattered pines. One of them had fallen, and, stopping beside it, he looped the bridle round a broken branch, and sat down to rest and think, for the difficulties of the way had occupied his attention during a long day's journey, and, since he expected to meet Saxton in another hour, he had food for reflection.

It was not a cheerful prospect he looked down upon, and that evening the desolation of the surroundings reacted upon him. The gleaming snow was smothered now in banks of dingy mist, and below him there rolled away a dreary waste of pines, whose ragged spires rose out of the drifting vapors rent and twisted by the ceaseless winds. It was, in words he had not infrequently heard applied to it, a hard country he must spend his years of exile in, and of late nothing had gone well with him.