Read the sentence from the story. Then answer the question.

The stranger came early in

February, one wintry day, through a

biting wind and a driving snow, the

last snowfall of the year, over the

down, walking as it seemed from

Bramblehurst railway station, and

carrying a little black portmanteau

in his thickly gloved hand.

The setting evoked by the words in this sentence can best be described as —