Mile after mile the moor rose and
dipped, and, although Skiddaw was on his right, purple and grey, yet to
his left there was a long curved horizon of sparkling blue sea. It was a
cloudless day overhead, and the air seemed kindling and fresh round him
as it blew across the stretches of heather from the western sea. He
himself felt full of an extraordinary vitality, and the mere movement of
his limbs gave him joy as he went swiftly and easily forward over the
heather. There was the sound of the wind in his ears, and again and again
there came the gush of water from somewhere out of sight--as he had heard
it in the church by Skiddaw. There was no house or building of any kind
within sight, and he felt a great relief in these miles of heath and the
sense of holiday that they gave him. But all the joy round him and in his
heart found their point for him in the person that went with him; this
presence was their centre, as a diamond in a gold ring, or as a throned
figure in a Court circle. All else existed for the sake of this
person;--the heather blossomed and the gorse incensed the air, and the
sea sparkled, and the sky was blue, and the air kindled, and his own
heart warmed and throbbed, for that only. When he tried to see who it
was, there was nothing to see; the presence existed there as a centre in
a sphere, immeasurable and indiscernible; sometimes he thought it was
Mary, sometimes he thought it Henry Buxton, sometimes Isabel--once even
he assured himself it was Mistress Margaret, and once James Maxwell--and
with the very act of identification came indecision again.
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