The New Tenant by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

Grayness reigned everywhere -- in the sky, on the hillside, and on the bare moor, no longer made resplendent by the gleaming beauty of the purple heather and fainter flashes of yellow gorse. The dry, springy turf had become a swamp, and phantom-like wreaths of mist blurred and saddened the landscape. The sweet stirring of the summer wind amongst the pine trees had given place to the melancholy drip of raindrops falling from their heavy, drooping branches on to the soddened ground. Every vestige of coloring had died out of the landscape -- from the sea, the clouds, and the heath. It was the earth's mourning season, when the air has neither the keen freshness of winter, the buoyancy of spring, the sweet drowsy languor of summer, or the bracing exhilaration of autumn. It was November.

Daylight was fast fading away; but the reign of twilight had not yet commenced. After a blustering morning, a sudden stillness had fallen upon the earth. The wild north wind had ceased its moaning in the pine trees, and no longer came booming across the level moorland. The dull gray clouds which all day long had been driven across the leaden sky in flying haste, hung low down upon the sad earth, and from over the water a sea fog rose to meet them. Nature had nothing more cheerful to offer than silence, a dim light, and indescribable desolation.