A House in the Uplands [antikvár]

Chapter I A southerly breeze from the low country, languid and moist, was drifting over the newly plowed fields of the upland slope and rustling the leaves of the tall red oaks that surroimded the aging house. It was twilight in the early spring. The nightbirds, having roosted silently in the trees through the heat of the day, were fluttering restlessly. Now that the birds were awake, they would chirp shrilly until dawn. At the bottom of the slope, half a mile away, a blue haze of woodsmoke floated in a thin wafer of a cloud above a groundíire in a patch of pines that had been burning wild and untended for several days. From time to time there was a sudden bright flare of yellowish flame when a turpentine cup on a tree was ignited by the creeping groundfire.