Larger context for LACK in Corpus USbrown_UKbncw/UK_bncw.txt
Now the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and the countryside was shadowed and brooding -- an unfriendly place filled with menace.
Her heart was still at Framlingham Hall, the house that stood in the shadow of the great castle with thirteen towers, built by Roger Bigod in the year 1177.
Briar Cottage looked of a sudden smaller, Joan thought as it came into sight.
It appeared deserted, a trifle sinister even amid the overhanging trees -- and, though she had not before registered the fact, it lacked the sound of happy voices which had in times past always greeted her return.
Briar Cottage no longer seemed like home; like the cottage where eleven years earlier she had been born.
The groom helped her dismount and she thanked him politely and waited, unwilling to break the link with her new-found friend before she must, until groom and horses were out of sight.
She was surprised that her mother had not hurried out to greet her.
She had pictured Bess Halidon, restless and anxious, looking eagerly for her return… She lifted the latch and went indoors.
"Mama?" she called from the threshold.
"Mama?
I am back -- home again safe and sound.
Where are you?
Upstairs?
I'm coming up.
There's no need to worry -- I'd not live there for all the gold in Christendom and I told the lady Anne as much!
Nay, I said -- at Briar Cottage I live and there I mean to stay!"