Soon the distances of the landscape had faded from them altogether. They came to an upland scarred with stony lanes where they could see nothing on either side of them but thistle pastures, poor and unkindly, huge fields where many sheep were feeding in the mist. Morgan enjoyed himself, running up the banks to a gap in the broken wall and scaring them as he stood there like a phantom himself, waving his arms. At last, when it seemed that they could climb no farther into the clouds, the road began to fall. Abner was glad of this, for, strong as he was, the weight of Gladys, made more awkward by her long splint, was telling on him. The road gave him no rest: it went on inflexibly between its walls of stone, and when his breath failed him there was no clean air with which he might fill his lungs: only this thin, clammy whiteness. They jolted down into a valley, where they found a village of stone houses, so cold and mountainous in character that it seemed to have been scoured with snow. Above the door of the post-office Abner spelt out the word, _Newchurch_. ‘New church?’ said Mary, with a sinking heart. ‘But Newchurch is miles and miles away from us! I drove here once with father. Are you sure it’s the right road?’ ‘It’s right by what I heard at the Pound House, when Mick talked of walking over to Bron. It’s right enough . . . only the hills make it seem longer.’ A little later she asked him anxiously what the time was. ‘Don’t you know my watch is gone?’ he replied irritably. ‘By what it was in Newchurch I reckon we’ve a good four hour before dark. And then there’s a moon.’ They crossed another ridge of hills. Half-way up the slope Morgan said that he was tired, and asked his mother to carry him. She took him up in her arms without a word and dragged along behind Abner. He looked back at her, questioning, for the slowness of her pace impeded him. She knew what he was thinking. ‘I can’t go faster,’ she said, trying to smile; but at the next brow she had to stop to fetch her breath, putting Morgan down on the bank beside her under a bush of green broom. ‘I want to walk again now, mam,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Are we nearly there?’ He had pestered her so often with this question that for a moment her strained temper gave way. ‘Don’t worry, Morgan!’ she said sharply. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re there.’ Abner laughed, and she turned on him with annoyance. She thought he was laughing at her irritability, but found that his eyes were kindly. ‘Lucky for them they don’t know,’ he said, shaming her with a smile. She tried to cover her annoyance by asking if they were anywhere near the top of the hills. He knew no more than she did. Certainly by the time that they had rested and moved on again the fog had thickened. The stone walls and the clumps of hawthorn and furze with which the fields were scattered looked misty, wild, gigantic. ‘Time we quickened up a bit,’ he said. ‘How can you be sure it’s the right road?’