[CHAPTER XIX]
Gerald's Temper
THE following Saturday evening found Angel with her father and uncle in the churchyard on Haresdown hill. They had been for a walk, and now stood leaning over the churchyard wall admiring the view, and watching the sunset. The western sky was gorgeous in its colouring, its hues deepening from delicate shell pink to brilliant crimson and gold, the reflected glory of which lit up the old grey church, and cast a rosy glow over the meadows lying between Haresdown hill and the town, over which a faint grey mist was now rising.
There had been silence for some time when Mr. Bailey glanced from one to the other of his companions, and said with a smile—
"I wonder what we have been thinking of these last few minutes. Not one of us has spoken a word!"
"I was watching that cloud," Mr. Willis returned, indicating a snowy speck in the western sky, "and trying to remember a poem I once read called 'The Evening Cloud,' written, I presume, after watching another such a glorious sight as this. The poet imagined the white cloud slowly floating towards the sunset an emblem of the immortality of the soul. I cannot remember all the poem, only these lines—"
"Emblem, methought, of the departed soul
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,
And by the breath of mercy made to roll
Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven.