ii. A column of gnats above the cutwater’s apex. The afterglow of a good sunset pale apricot on the water. A car-load of fishermen packing up, glad of their flasks. The temperature falling, a first puff of breeze and three fields away a stately excuse-me dance to the soundtrack of gurgle and riversplash, as tractors fetch in the last of the silage ahead of the dew, one reeling its trailer away for the next to run in under the chopper. The first bat circling under the beech. Moths. Think Tudor, and built like a fortress: three arches, two piers – each with a cutwater like the prow of a ship where you can step off the carriageway, each refuge enough for two horses, let alone one walker like me. Startling, from nowhere, a stagecoach: 81A, its lit empty box tracking the river downstream. Jane Routh iii. iv. |