Read "Doomsday" by Warwick Deeping online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A man wakes when he wishes to wake, and Furze woke very early. Also there are different ways of beginning the day, with haste, and a pulling on of any old clothes--mental and otherwise, or calmly and consideringly and with the freshness of the dawn in your nostrils. Furze stood at his open window, and the dawn looked at him like the gentle brown eyes of a dog. "What of the day, my Master?" Verily the day was good. The haste had gone from his soul.
Leaning his arms on the sill with his shoulders touching the oak mullions, he saw the valley full of white mist, and the woods on the hillside more grey than green. A couple of cows were pulling at the wet grass on the other side of the wall of the sunk garden. A robin twittered. An old pear tree stood up, a pyre of soft flame against the grey blue distance. Rushy Pool looked like a sheet of quicksilver. Nothing could have been more gentle than this daybreak, or the stealthy way in which the sun pushed feelers of light along the valley and touched the sleeping heads of the oaks in Gore Wood.