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"
"There isn't even a church," he continued.
"Then you can send me down a tin one from Humphreys'. I believe they can
supply one with everything from a tin rabbit-hutch to a town hall."
He sighed and departed, and the next day I found myself here, in
Murglebed-on-Sea.
On a murky, sullen November day Murglebed exhibits unimagined horrors
of scenic depravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is like a bit of
waste land in Gehenna. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away
from the more or less dry land which local ignorance and superstition
call the sea. The interim is mud--oozy, brown, malevolent mud. Sometimes
it seems to heave as if with the myriad bodies of slimy crawling eels
and worms and snakes. A few foul boats lie buried in it.
Here and there, on land, a surly inhabitant spits into it. If you
address him he snorts at you unintelligibly. If you turn your back to
the sea you are met by a prospect of unimagined despair. There are
no trees. The country is flat and barren. A dismal creek runs miles
inland--an estuary fed by the River Murgle.


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