The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

Well, repeated Soames, "I haven't made up my mind; the thing will very

likely go off!" With these words, taking up his umbrella, he put his

chilly hand into the agent's, withdrew it without the faintest pressure,

and went out into the sun.

He walked slowly back towards the site in deep thought. His instinct

told him that what the agent had said was true. A cheap site. And the

beauty of it was, that he knew the agent did not really think it cheap;

so that his own intuitive knowledge was a victory over the agent's.

'Cheap or not, I mean to have it,' he thought.

The larks sprang up in front of his feet, the air was full of

butterflies, a sweet fragrance rose from the wild grasses. The sappy

scent of the bracken stole forth from the wood, where, hidden in the

depths, pigeons were cooing, and from afar on the warm breeze, came the

rhythmic chiming of church bells.

Soames walked with his eyes on the ground, his lips opening and closing

as though in anticipation of a delicious morsel. But when he arrived

at the site, Bosinney was nowhere to be seen. After waiting some little

time, he crossed the warren in the direction of the slope. He would have

shouted, but dreaded the sound of his voice.

The warren was as lonely as a prairie, its silence only broken by the

rustle of rabbits bolting to their holes, and the song of the larks.

Soames, the pioneer-leader of the great Forsyte army advancing to

the civilization of this wilderness, felt his spirit daunted by the

loneliness, by the invisible singing, and the hot, sweet air. He had

begun to retrace his steps when he at last caught sight of Bosinney.

The architect was sprawling under a large oak tree, whose trunk, with a

huge spread of bough and foliage, ragged with age, stood on the verge of

the rise.

Soames had to touch him on the shoulder before he looked up.

"Hallo! Forsyte," he said, "I've found the very place for your house!

Look here!"

Soames stood and looked, then he said, coldly:

"You may be very clever, but this site will cost me half as much again."

"Hang the cost, man. Look at the view!"

Almost from their feet stretched ripe corn, dipping to a small dark

copse beyond. A plain of fields and hedges spread to the distant

grey-bluedowns. In a silver streak to the right could be seen the line

of the river.

The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal summer

seemed to reign over this prospect. Thistledown floated round them,

enraptured by the serenity, of the ether. The heat danced over the

corn, and, pervading all, was a soft, insensible hum, like the murmur of

bright minutes holding revel between earth and heaven.