Chapter 30: The Huntsman

The Huntsman A sultry, stifling midday. Not a cloudlet in the sky. … The sunbaked grass had a disconsolate, hopeless look: even if there were rain it could never be green again. … The forest stood silent, motionless, as though it were looking at something with its treetops or expecting something. At the edge of the clearing a tall, narrow-shouldered man of forty in a red shirt, in patched trousers that had been a gentleman’s, and in high boots, was slouching along with a lazy, shamblin…