...
How was it he had seen the three men on the moor; as he turned with
Anthony? They were against the crimson west, as against a glory, the two
laymen on either side, the young priest in the middle.... They had
seemed to bear him up and support him; the colour of the sky was as a
stain of blood; and their shadows had stretched to his own feet....
* * * * *
And there came on him in that hour one of those vast experiences that
can never be told, when a flood rises in earth and air that turns them
all to wine, that wells up through tired limbs, and puzzled brain and
beating heart, and soothes and enkindles, all in one; when it is not a
mere vision of peace that draws the eyes up in an ecstasy of sight, but
a bathing in it, and an envelopment in it, of every fibre of life; when
the lungs draw deep breaths of it; and the heart beats in it, and the
eyes are enlightened by it; when the things of earth become at once
eternal and fixed and of infinite value, and at the same instant of less
value than the dust that floats in space; when there no longer appears
any distinction between the finite and the eternal, between time and
infinity; when the soul for that moment at least finds that rest that is
the magnet and the end of all human striving; and that comfort which
wipes away all tears.
CHAPTER V
I
It was the sixth night after Dick Sampson had come back with news of Mr.
Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to go
twenty-four hours later.
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