CHAPTER VIII

THE JOURNEY TO THE NORTH In the autumn dusk Mr. Francis Birkenshaw rode down a path of mountain gravel into the glen of a little stream. Behind him were the flat meadows of his own country, with coiling waters and towns smoking in woody hollows. The sea lined the horizon with a gleam as of steel; and, fretted faintly against hillside and sky, all but vanishing into the evening haze, rose the spires and turrets of the city he had left. From the prosperous cornfields five miles back the way had risen slowly to the cr…