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things become ghostly and elusive, the hills beyond are a sea of
unsubstantial texture, the world a visible spirit, the spiritual within
us rises out of its darkness, loses something of its weight and body,
and swims up towards heaven. This road that was a mere rutted white
dust, hot underfoot, blinding to the eye, is now a soft grey silence,
with the glitter of a crystal grain set starlike in its silver here
and there. Overhead, riding serenely through the spacious blue, is the
mother of the silence, she who has spiritualised the world, alone save
for two attendant steady shining stars. And in silence under her benign
influence, under the benediction of her light, rode our two wanderers
side by side through the transfigured and transfiguring night.
Nowhere was the moon shining quite so brightly as in Mr. Hoopdriver's
skull. At the turnings of the road he made his decisions with an air of
profound promptitude (and quite haphazard). "The Right," he would say.
Or again "The Left," as one who knew. So it was that in the space of an
hour they came abruptly down a little lane, full tilt upon the sea. Grey
beach to the right of them and to the left, and a little white cottage
fast asleep inland of a sleeping fishing-boat. "Hullo!" said Mr.
Hoopdriver, sotto voce. They dismounted abruptly. Stunted oaks and
thorns rose out of the haze of moonlight that was tangled in the hedge
on either side.
"You are safe," said Mr. Hoopdriver, sweeping off his cap with an air
and bowing courtly.
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