Not the least of the mysteries of the place, and it was tense with
mystery, was the Sunday congregation, which appeared to spring up
miraculously from the rocks, woods and graves.

When the present minister, Edward Marston, came there with his mother
he detested it; but after a time it insinuated itself into his heart,
and gave a stronger character to his religion. He had always been
naturally religious, taking on trust what he was taught; and he had an
instinctive pleasure in clean and healthy things. But on winter nights
at the mountain, when the tingling stars sprang in and out of their
black ambush and frost cracked the tombstones; in summer, when
lightning crackled in the woods and ripped along the hillside like a
thousand devils, the need of a God grew ever more urgent. He spoke of
this to his mother.

'No, dear, I can't say I have more need of our Lord here than in
Crigton,' she said. 'In Crigton there was the bus to be afraid of, and
bicycles. Here I just cover my ears for wind, put on an extra flannel
petticoat for frost, and sit in the coal-house for thunder. Not that
I'm forgetting God. God with us, of course, coal-house or elsewhere.'

'But don't you feel something ominous about the place, mother? I feel
as if something awful would happen here, don't you?'

'No, dear. Nor will you when you've had some magnesia. Martha!' (Martha
was the general who came in by the day from the first cottage in the
batch)--'Martha, put on an extra chop for the master. You aren't in
love, are you, my dear?'