Thus Patience saw him for one brief second, framed in the doorway of the forge, the last rays of the setting sun forming a background of crimson and gold for his slim, upright figure, and the brown curls on his head.
It was but a moment's vision, but one she would carry enshrined in her memory through all the years to come. His eyes, large, glowing, magnetic, met hers in a flash, and hers, bright with unshed tears, met his in quick response.
"Soldiers!" he shouted, as he rode away, "an you think I am a rebel lord, then after me, quick! whilst I ride towards the sunset."
PART II
THE HEATH
CHAPTER XV
THE OUTLAW
Beau Brocade drew rein on the spur of the hill. He had galloped all the way from the forge, out towards the sunset, then on, ever on, over gorse and bracken, on red sandy soil and soft carpet of ling, on, still on!
Overhead, on the blue-green dome of the evening sky, a giant comet, made up of myriads of tiny, rose-tipped clouds, formed a fairy way, ever diminishing, ever more radiant, pointing westwards to the setting sun, where orange and crimson and blue melted in one glorious mist of gold.
Out far away, the distant Tors glowed in the evening light, like great barriers to some mystic elusive land beyond.