Cotswold Gothic i. The moon’s a fingernail off full — was brass when rising, polished pewter now; the wind-blown cirrostratus tatters greyly past its face, like streaks of tarnish, fleeting. The shrieks and hoots of tawny owls reach frenzied climax, then subside; a brown hare pauses by the field edge, seems to check the moon, then fades into the hedgerow gloom. ii. The lane that ran down to the bridge was shadowed by a bank on either side, the moonlight silver-blue along a narrow central ribbon, jagged with the shadows of the winter trees. Halfway to the bridge we came upon an adder, flattened by the traffic of the day; we paused beside it, and were feather-kissed by swooping whiteness searching for a meal. Closer to the bridge, the blackness at the verges – neutral, friendly even, when we’d started off – grew colder, more forbidding. Even now the bridge was indistinct, the overhanging trees and crowding undergrowth subsumed it in a dark, undifferentiated mass. We edged a little nearer to each other.
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