CHAPTER SEVENWhen Macdonald left Yelverton to drive up to the moor (everybody spoke of Dartmoor thus—the moor) it was a clear, cold, grey morning. There was no sunshine and the uniformly grey sky was pale, as though the clouds or overcast were very high up. It was a colourless morning: even the meadows and pastures of the valley looked wan, very different from the vibrant emerald of springtime, and as he mounted towards the moor the world became more and more a study in monochrome. The withered bents of the upland grassland were ashen, the occasional thorns etched black against the sky, the stone outcrops dark, the withered heather sepia. And yet, to a Londoner’s eye, it was all incredibly clean: low-toned, admittedly, but utterly different from the drab murk left by London’s famous fog.
