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.
Sunday morning at last! Never has a day seemed so long in coming as this; but come it has, and at half-past ten, after a pleasant, leisurely walk from Market Deignton, I find myself seated upon an old stump in the second plantation between the Court and the church. My head is leaning back against a red-trunked pine, and through the little cloud of blue-grey cigarette smoke which hangs around me in the breathless air, I keep my eyes fixed upon the path above.
It is a wonderfully clear day for November. Up through the slim, leafless branches of the trees I can see patches of blue sky, and the sunshine is glancing upon the russet-brown undergrowth, and lies across the winding path. The air is positively motionless. Every now and then a withered dead leaf comes fluttering to the ground to make thicker the damp spiky carpet which lies already upon the ground, and just now a rabbit went scurrying through the bushes, pausing for a moment and sitting up on his haunches to look at me in surprise with bright black eyes. But, save for these things, Nature seems to have fallen asleep.