“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
Calamy watched them go, watched them till they were out of sight round a bend in the road. A profound melancholy settled down upon him. With them, he felt, had gone all his old, familiar life. He was left quite alone with something new and strange. What was to come of this parting?
Or perhaps, he reflected, nothing would come of it. Perhaps he had been a fool.
The cottage was in the shadow now. Looking up the slope he could see a clump of trees still glittering as though prepared for a festival above the rising flood of darkness. And at the head of the valley, like an immense precious stone, glowing with its own inward fire, the limestone crags reached up through the clouds into the pale sky. Perhaps he had been a fool, thought Calamy. But looking at that shining peak, he was somehow reassured.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained.
Itemized changes from the original text: