cast about
her, could possibly suffer from the meanness of vulgar minds. Shropton's
note, indeed, caused him the more annoyance of those two documents. It
was like his brother-in-law to make much of little!

He hardly dozed at all during his swift journey through the sleeping
country; nor when he reached his room at Monkland did he go to bed. He
had the wonderful, upborne feeling of man on the verge of achievement.
His spirit and senses were both on fire--for that was the quality of this
woman, she suffered no part of him to sleep, and he was glad of her
exactions.

He drank some tea; went out, and took a path up to the moor. It was not
yet eight o'clock when he reached the top of the nearest tor. And there,
below him, around, and above, was a land and sky transcending even his
exaltation. It was like a symphony of great music; or the nobility of a
stupendous mind laid bare; it was God up there, in His many moods.
Serenity was spread in the middle heavens, blue, illimitable, and along
to the East, three huge clouds, like thoughts brooding over the destinies
below, moved slowly toward the sea, so that great shadows filled the
valleys. And the land that lay under all the other sky was gleaming, and
quivering with every colour, as it were, clothed with the divine smile.
The wind, from the North, whereon floated the white birds of the smaller
clouds, had no voice, for it was above barriers, utterly free. Before
Miltoun, turning to this wind, lay the maze of the lower lands, the misty
greens, rose pinks, and browns of the fields, and white and grey dots and
strokes of cottages and church towers, fading into the blue veil of
distance, confined by a far range of hills. Behind him there was nothing
but the restless surface of the moor, coloured purplish-brown. On that
untamed sea of graven wildness could be seen no ship of man, save one, on
the far horizon--the grim hulk, Dartmoor Prison. There was no sound, no
scent, and it seemed to Miltoun as if his spirit had left his body, and
become part of the solemnity of God. Yet, as he stood there, with his
head bared, that strange smile which haunted him in moments of deep
feeling, showed that he had not surrendered to the Universal, that his
own spirit was but being fortified, and that this was the true and secret
source of his delight. He lay down in a scoop of the stones. The sun
entered there, but no wind, so that a dry sweet scent exuded from the
young shoots of heat