Read "The Postmaster of Market Deignton" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
My shop is closed, and Mrs. Mason has gone. The moment I am assured of this I hurry into my thickest boots, and catching up a stick, start on my walk. There is the glow of a cheerful light behind the drawn blinds of most of the little windows past which I hasten, but not a soul in the streets, not a soul all the way along those wet country lanes where the high black hedges loom against the black sky, and never a star comes out to light me on the way. A night of desolation has followed a dreary day.
The whole earth is rain-sodden and sad. A dull wind sobs in the tree-tops, and at every gust the branches discharge little showers of dripping wet. Here and there I am ankle-deep in sticky sandy mud; more than once I find myself knee-deep in a flooded portion of the road. I do not heed it. I have but a solitary care, only one desire.