Two ribald listeners, who had evidently been in some choir, paced arm in
arm, singing the responses to the Litany in melodramatic fashion, except
when their voices were choked with loud laughter at their own wit.

Pushed by the disagreeableness of these surroundings, and by keen
interest in the old man who had once visited him, Alec decided on the
walk. The mountain was nearer than the village; he hoped to reach it in
time. He was told to keep on the same road till he came to the river, to
follow its bank for about a mile, and when he saw the buildings of a
farm just under the hill, to turn up a lane which would lead him by the
house to the principal ascent. He walked out into the night.

At first he was full of thoughts, but after walking a while, fatigue and
monotony made him dull. His intelligence seemed to dwell now in his
muscles rather than in his brain. His feet told him on what sort of a
road he was walking; by his fatigue he estimated, without conscious
thought, how far he had walked.

When he had gone for nearly two hours the storm had come so much nearer
that the lightning constantly blinded his eyes. He heard now the rushing
of the river, and, as he turned into the road by its side, he saw the
black hill looming large. Nothing but the momentum of a will already
made up kept his intention turned to the climb, so unpropitious was the
time, so utterly lonely the place. As it was, with quiescent mind and
vigorous step, he held on down the smooth road that lay beside the
swollen river.

Some way farther, when the water had either grown quieter or his ear
accustomed to the sound, human voices I became audible, approaching on