"Yes. I am going to send you to church."
"To church! There is no service to-night, aunt Caxton."
"Not at the church where you have been—in the village. There is a little church in the valley beyond Mrs. Pynce's cottage. You are going there."
"I do not remember any. Why, aunt Caxton, the valley is too narrow there for anything but the road and the brook; the mountains leave no room—hardly room for her house."
"You have never been any further. Do you not remember a sharp turn just beyond that place?"
"Yes, I do."
"You will see the chapel when you get round the turn."
The place Mrs. Caxton alluded to, was a wild, secluded, most beautiful valley, the bottom of which as Eleanor said was almost filled up with the road, and the brook which rushed along its course to meet the river; itself almost as large as another river. Where the people could be found to go to a church in such a region, she could not imagine. Heather clothed the hills; fairy cascades leaped down the rocks at every turning, lovely as a dream; the whole scene was wild and lonely. Hardly any human habitations or signs of human action broke the wild reign of nature all the valley through. Eleanor was sure of a charming ride at least, whether there was to be a congregation in the church at the end of it or no; and she prepared herself accordingly. Mrs. Caxton was detained at home; the car did not go; three or four of the household, men and women, went on ponies as Eleanor did.
They set off very early, while the light was fair and beautiful yet, for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village; it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she; when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. Then she had been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty. Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take. Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her.
How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from this point into a comparatively broad valley, bordered with higher hills as it widened in the distance. The light still shewed its entrancing beauty; wooded, and spotted with houses and habitations of all kinds; from the very humble to the very lordly, and from the business factories of to-day, back to the ruined strongholds of the time when war was business. Wide and delicious the view was, as much as it was unexpected; and spring's softened colouring was all over it. Eleanor made a pause of a few seconds as soon as all this burst upon her; her next thought was to look for the church. And it was plain to see; a small dark edifice, in excellent keeping with its situation; because of its colour and its simple structure, which half merged it among the rocks and the hills.