But from the church, all ivy-mantled amid its wide graveyard, a bell was clanging, and across the grassy mounds dotted with stones, a tall figure in a black cassock and a biretta cap made its way to the vestry door.
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness," remarked Ned, "but he has the bell ringer for congregation, and even Miss Myfanwy Jones will come back to the old churchyard in the end, as her fathers have done, for a penny funeral." Then he laughed. "I shall never forget my Scotch groom-----" he paused. Ted eyed him curiously.
"Well?" he said.
"Oh, nothing! only his criticism on a Welsh funeral was scathing. 'There was no a drop o' whisky, an' they asket me tae pit inter the brod!' Insult on injury!"
So, laughing, they made their way upwards, through black land and bog, through thickets of unimaginably tall brake, and over sparse close-bitten knolls, the sheep flying in disorder from them like a routed army, a stonechat starting from the gorse giving them a momentary thought of game--a thought, no more. And the sunshine mounted with them, chased by the shadow, so that it came upon them by surprise when they reached the summit to see the valley below them veiled in soft purple, and the sun itself not far from setting behind an ominous low level of cloud which lay far out to seaward.
"It has taken longer than I thought," said Ned, stretching himself flat on his stomach, "but there is plenty of time."
"Plenty," echoed Ted, cross-legged like a Turk as he knocked out the ashes of his pipe on a stone.
"We've done the ginger-beer woman, anyhow," remarked Ned after a pause. "She comes there," he pointed to a hovel of stones a few hundred yards further along the plateau, "from the Llangolley side; seven A.M. till seven P.M. during tourist time, the innkeeper said. I wonder how she spends her day?" Then, half to himself, he added, "As if this wasn't meat and drink enough for any one."
It should have been. Far and near, cleft by the purpling shadow from below, the higher hill-tops dissociated themselves from the lower ones, shining rosy, resplendent, giving back the sun its parting gift royally, yet yielding bit by bit to the swift storming uprush of shadow. Another, and another picket of light stood, broke, fled from the foe to some higher refuge, until the last steadfast post of the "World's Eye" remained alone above a world of shadow. Remained alone, a vantage-ground of clear vision, above the wide cup of amethyst hills in which the flood-tide of the sea lay prisoned. So still, so serene, so silvery, lulled to unresisting sleep, as a captive bride might be, by love for the surpassing beauty of those embracing arms. Beyond, over the broad belt of darkening ocean, the sun was just dipping into the bar of cloud, leaving a flame upon the sky.
"We must wait and see the last of it," said he upon the grass suddenly, and the other nodded.