CHAPTER XVIII
A WEDDING JOURNEY
“Just a moment, if you please, Paula. I should like to get down a few notes of this bit. Oh, what a view! Lake, moor, hills, mountains, village!”
Mr. Howland sprang from the car, sketchbook in hand, and ran forward to a jutting rock that commanded the wide valley, flanked by hills, in whose bosom lay a loch, shimmering in the morning light. The car drew up on the brow of a long and gently sloping incline, which the road followed until it disappeared in a turn at the village at the loch's end.
“Get the little church tower in, father, and a bit of the castle. I can see it from here,” said Paula, standing upon the motor seat.
“I shall try this further rock,” said her father. “Ah, here it is. Do come, all of you, and get this. Oh, what a perfectly glorious view!”
The little group gathered about him in silence, upon a little headland that overlooked the valley, and feasted upon the beauty that spread itself out before them, the undulating slope and shimmering loch, the wide moors and softly rounded hills, the dark green masses of ragged firs, and the great white Bens in the far distance, and below them, in the midst the human touch, in a nestling village with its Heaven-pointing spire.
“Hark!” said Paula.
From across the loch there floated up to them, soft and mellow as an angel's song, the sound of a bell.