Explore "Michael Godwin's Xmas Box" by Katharine Tynan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Michael Godwin's farm lay tucked away comfortably in a hollow of the South Downs. The downs swept up-wards in all directions around it, and on one side beyond was the sea. The sound of it as it beat against the face of the cliff and tore the shingle screaming from the little strands, only to fling it high as it came back again, reached Godwin's Farm as a subdued murmur. The farm was a pretty place, especially in summer, when the chalk downs were covered with a thick carpet of beautiful wild flowers. But it was very lonely. Mr. Hurst, the Vicar, coming to see Michael at rare intervals, had said to him that such a solitude was only fit for a beast or a god. His kindly eyes, directed on Michael as he said it, took out of the words any suggestion of offence.
Michael Godwin only answered that the solitude did him well enough. There was old Nance in the kitchen to care for the house and him, and when he wanted talk there weren't many had more interesting things to tell than old Simon, who had kept the sheep on Godwin's Farm, man and boy, for 50 years.