Explore "The Broad Highway" by Jeffery Farnol on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Even in that drowsy, semi-conscious state, that most delightful borderland which lies midway between sleeping and waking, I knew it could not be the woodpecker who, as I judged from sundry manifest signs, lodged in the tree above me. No woodpecker that ever pecked could originate such sounds as these -- two quick, light strokes, followed by another, and heavier, thus: Tap, tap -- TAP; a pause, and then, tap, tap -- TAP again, and so on.
Whatever doubts I may have yet harbored on the subject, however, were presently dispelled by a fragrance sweeter, to the nostrils of a hungry man, than the breath of flowers, the spices of the East, or all the vaunted perfumes of Arabia -- in a word, the odor of frying bacon.