At the close, while I was exchanging greetings with the preacher, my friend who had brought me to the chapel busied herself in finding someone who would be driving home in my direction—the meeting had been attended by people from many miles round. She discovered that a farmer and his wife were driving within a quarter of a mile of my cottage, and I was placed in their trap, carefully wrapped up in a warm Paisley shawl that had been produced from somewhere, the night being described as “a bit freshish, after all the dryth we’ve had.”
We didn’t talk much on the homeward journey. My companions were thinking some deep thoughts, I was certain, from the few remarks they let drop. But we English do not easily betray our hearts in public. Hence the farthest the farmer’s wife got was the remark, “I’d dearly like to hear he again.” To which her husband replied, “Ay! for sure.”
They told me the meetings had been much blessed, but this one was the best of all. Oh, yes, quite different from the others. No, the usual congregation was not as large as this, only about forty; the village was small. But people had come from all over the hills this week; to-day twenty had walked in from Brownbrook—that was seven miles each way.
They went on without any connecting link to say they felt sure the English would win. There was no doubt in their minds about this, one could see; and then the reason was clear. “Our Tom’s there,” the woman explained to me, as though I of course knew “Our Tom,” and his presence at the front settled the matter.
And I thought of the many fathers and mothers who were looking away across the Straits, with just that pride and faith because “Our Tom” is helping his country.
At last we came to the little lane that turned off from the turnpike-road, and led to my cottage, and I said good-bye to my companions. The small white dog with the brown ears had heard my footsteps and had run out joyfully to meet me; he had begun to be seriously concerned as to whether he would ever get a proper meal again! The night was certainly a bit freshish, but a glorious moon was out, and the hills were all high lights and deep shadows. I stopped a moment at my own gate, to look down at the old grey Abbey lying in the valley seven hundred feet below. Everything was still and peaceful. Only an owl called to another one in the steep woods across the river, and a couple of baby owls answered. An apple fell with a dull thud whenever the wind drifted across the orchard. It was so quiet, so restful; it was difficult to think there was lurid war-fog away beyond those hills.
Then suddenly, as I watched, I saw in the distance a procession of swinging, twinkling lights moving along a footpath that cut through a wood and crossed a low spur of the hills.
For the moment I wondered what it was, but in an instant I knew; it was the party from Brownbrook on their homeward tramp, and their lanterns were lighting them down the rugged precipitous footpath that was lying in deep shadow.
When they reached the level road they started singing, their voices in beautiful harmony, rising up and echoing again and again against the steep hillsides.