Such as it was, it was the gift of all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of likeness or identity.

Their images scarce ranged beyond the red horizon of the moor and the rainy hill-top, the shepherd and his sheep, a fowling-piece, a spade, a pipe, a dunghill, a crowing cock, the shining and the withdrawal of the sun.

An occasional pathos of simple humanity, and frequent patches of big Biblical words, relieved the homely tissue.

It was a poetry apart; bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the soil.
A little before the coming of the squall there was a different scene enacting at the outposts.

For the most part, the sentinels were faithful to their important duty; the Hill-end of Drumlowe was known to be a safe meeting-place; and the out-pickets on this particular day had been somewhat lax from the beginning, and grew laxer during the inordinate length of the discourse.