"My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she
calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire.
The waters are out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in
the park has been sapped and sopped away. The adjacent
low-lying ground for half a mile in breadth is a stagnant
river with melancholy trees for islands in it and a surface
punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain.
My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather
for many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem
wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's
axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. The deer,
looking soaked, leave quagmires where they pass.
The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and
its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards the green rise,
coppice-topped, that makes a background for the falling rain.
The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is alternately a
lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases on the
stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the
heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged
pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night.
On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken
pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell
and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves."
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
