Quill's Window

The glare of a hot August sun failed to penetrate the shelter in which they idled; out upon the slowgliding river it beat relentlessly, creating a pale, thin vapour that clung close to the shimmering surface and dazzled the eye with an ever-shifting glaze. The air was lifeless, sultry, stifling; not a leaf, not a twig in the tall, drooping willows moved unless stirred by the passage of some vagrant bird. The older man sat on the ground, his back against the trunk of a tree that grew so near to the edge that it seemed on the point of toppling over to shatter the smooth, green mirror below. Some of its sturdy exposed roots reached down from the bank into the water, where they caught and held the drift from upstream, reeds and twigs and matted grass, a dirty, sickly mass that swished lazily on the flank of the slow-moving current. The water here in the shade was deep and clear and limpid, contrasting sharply with the steel-white surface out beyond.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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