Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch

As he rode north and west he looked anxiously for those stretches of water which made travel a hell at this season of the year but promised good times to come. He saw only the rolling downs of last year's grass, with patches of red earth where the sheep had eaten out. The rains were late, but the sky remained like a dome of bone, and in the last burst of summer the earth pulsed and throbbed, throwing up heat-veils, like swathes of silk stirred by a wind, behind which trees and rocks seemed to be reflected in a distorting mirror. Sometimes it was so hot that the stirrup-irons burnt his feet through the soles of his boots. At sundown the stars flashed out of a colourless sky, great, breathing stars. From time to time a steady beat of wings broke the silence as birds passed southwards. A threat hung over the plain, the sheep panting in the shade, the cattle standing belly-deep in the waterholes to cool themselves, and Cabell trailing a cloud of dust along the deserted road.

The rain had often been later without causing anxiety. But now, when he saw his future so precariously at the mercy of the fates (who must know how little he deserved to have his hopes fulfilled), he was afraid. What if there was a drought?