"Are we far from St. Crux?" asked the captain, growing impatient, after
mile on mile had been passed without a sign of reaching the journey's
end.
"You'll see the house, sir, at the next turn in the road," said the man.
The next turn in the road brought them within view of the open country
again. Ahead of the carriage, Captain Wragge saw a long dark line
against the sky--the line of the sea-wall which protects the low coast
of Essex from inundation. The flat intermediate country was intersected
by a labyrinth of tidal streams, winding up from the invisible sea in
strange fantastic curves--rivers at high water, and channels of mud at
low. On his right hand was a quaint little village, mostly composed of
wooden houses, straggling down to the brink of one of the tidal streams.
On his left hand, further away, rose the gloomy ruins of an abbey,
with a desolate pile of buildings, which covered two sides of a square
attached to it. One of the streams from the sea (called, in Essex,
"backwaters") curled almost entirely round the house. Another, from an
opposite quarter, appeared to run straight through the grounds, and
to separate one side of the shapeless mass of buildings, which was in
moderate repair, from another, which was little better than a ruin.
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