Starting southward from the cross-roads, the character of the country
underwent so sudden a transformation that it looked as if man, having
contended here unsuccessfully with nature, had signed an ignominious
truce beneath the crumbling gateposts of the turnpike. Passing beyond
them a few steps out of the forest, one found a low hill, on which
the reaped corn stood in stacks like weapons of a vanished army, while
across the sunken road, the abandoned fields, overgrown with broomsedge
and life-everlasting, spread for several miles between "worm fences"
which were half buried in brushwood. To the eyes of the stranger, fresh
from the trim landscapes of England, there was an aspect of desolation
in the neglected roads, in the deserted fields, and in the dim grey
marshes that showed beyond the low banks of the river.

In the effort to shake off the depression this loneliness had brought
on his spirits, he turned to an ancient countryman, wearing overalls
of blue jeans, who dozed comfortably on the circular bench beneath the
mulberry tree.

"Is there a nearer way to Jordan's Journey, or must I follow the
turnpike?" he asked.

"Hey? Young Adam, are you thar, suh?"

Young Adam, a dejected looking youth of fifty years, with a pair of
short-sighted eyes that glanced over his shoulder as if in fear of
pursuit, shuffled round the trough of the well, and sat down on the
bench at his parent's side.

"He wants to know, pa, if thar's a short cut from the ornary over to