Original (English)

CHAPTER I. It was half-past four o’clock (by the testimony of the land-surveyor, my authority for the particulars of this story, a gentleman with the faintest curve of humour on his lips); it was half-past four o’clock on a May morning in the eighteen forties.  A dense white fog hung over the Valley of the Exe, ending against the hills on either side. But though nothing in the vale could be seen from higher ground, notes of differing kinds gave pretty clear indications that bustling li