The day of wrath seemed nigh at hand. Away down in the vale, and yonder, over the everlasting hills, flowed the wonder of the light; but the old man's face gave no sign, dazed, maybe, by the grandeur of it. But Felix St Bees, riding towards Warren House once more, as he reached the first slopes of the hills, was suddenly bathed in the glory, and drew rein and gazed about him. A dome of fire above reflected by the dull earth--a faint, phosphoric, shimmering rosiness among the grass blades. Upon the margin of the world a thicker vapour swelling upward with a deeper red, as of smoke tinted by the furnace under. On the sunset side of the tree-trunks a streak of crimson, and every leaf gleaming on its shiny smoothness; through the thickets a warm haze pouring, and the whiteness of the road before him reddened, as by the breath of flame. He paused, rapt in the deep marvelling which is prayer, and watched till it passed away. Then he pushed on among the hills. Coming slowly up a steep ascent, where on the summit, among the thorn thickets and the gnarled ashes, was a little lonely inn, he saw a dozen or more men, labouring hard and shouting by the side of the road. The highway had worn itself a gully or hollow, lessening the pull of the hill somewhat, and leaving a low but steep bank of coarse chalky rubble. On the sward a tinker's donkey was peacefully grazing, heedless of the excitement. "We've got un!" "Heave un out, you!" "Lay on, Jim!" "Let I try!" "Peach un up!" "What is it you are trying to do?" asked Felix, guiding his horse up to the group. "Aw, I seed his toes a' sticking out," cried a plough-boy, eager lest his share of the discovery should be forgotten. "It wur thuck heavy rain as washed the rubble away," said a man with a leathern apron, doubtless a blacksmith. Nothing ever happens without a blacksmith being in it. "Mebbe a rabbit a-scratching, doan't ee zee?" said the landlord of the inn, leaning on his spade and wiping his forehead; for much ale is a shortener of the breath. "Well, but what is it, after all--a treasure?" "Us doan't 'zactly knaw what it be," said the man nearest the bank, pausing, after swinging his pickaxe with some effect. "But us means to zee. Jim, shove thuck pole in." Jim picked up a long stout ash-pole, and thrust one end, as directed, into a cavity the pickaxe had made under a large sarsen boulder, the earth above which had been previously dug away. "Zumbody be buried thur, paason," said the landlord. "Mebbe you knaws un? Thur never wur nar a church here as we heard tell on." "Hang on, you chaps!" cried the blacksmith, throwing the weight of his body on the pole. The landlord, the plough-boy, and the tinker did the same; Jim and an aged man on the bank heaved at the great stone from above. "Peach un up!" [i.e. lever it] "He be goin'." Felix saw the boulder move. "One, two, dree!" "War out!"