They who were asleep turned over on their rude couches to dream of youth and love and olden days.

Hard-faced men and anxious gold-seekers, already at work, ceased their labors and leaned upon their picks, to listen to a romantic vagabond ambling away against the rosy sunrise.
HIGH-WATER MARK When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness was patent.

Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay, were all hard facts.

So were the few green tussocks, with their scant blades, their amphibious flavor and unpleasant dampness.

And if you choose to indulge your fancy--although the flat monotony of the Dedlow Marsh was not inspiring--the wavy line of scattered drift gave an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters, and made the dead certainty of the returning tide a gloomy reflection which no present sunshine could dissipate.