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Life may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon." They spent the old year's last hour quietly around the fire. A few minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door. "We must let the New Year in," he said. Outside was a fine blue night. A sparkling ribbon of moonlight garlanded the gulf.
As usual, there were a great number of Cuckoos in the Vale whilst I was there this summer ; but I was unfortunate in not finding eggs, and in not seeing any of the foster-parents feeding their over-grown protégés: this was rather surprising, as there were so many Cuckoos about, and many must have been hatched and out of the nest long before we left at the end of July.
Safe home! It might be said in another sense for Bernard, for he was naturally so strong and healthy that the effects of exposure and exhaustion were not long in passing off, the injury to the chest proved to be only temporary; and having cased him like a statue in plaster of Paris, the surgeons decided, to the joy of his family, that the more serious injuries would be better recovered from in the fresh air of Vale Leston, than in the fishy, muddy atmosphere of Ewmouth.
"I want to take you first to see a remarkable relic of Mercia, and then we'll go to Liverpool through what is called 'The Great Vale of Cheshire. You may be disappointed, but take care not to prepare your mind" this to Adam "for anything stupendous or heroic. You would not think the place a vale at all, unless you were told so beforehand, and had confidence in the veracity of the teller.
His full name was Luther Millard Filmore Rogers, and he was Dorinda's husband by law, and the burden which Providence, or hard luck, had ordered her to carry through this vale of tears. She was a good Methodist and there was no doubt in her mind that Providence was responsible. When she rose to testify in prayer-meeting she always mentioned her "cross" and everybody knew that the cross was Luther.
And night came; and now the wind lay dead; and upon the brooding earth, spangled with home-lights over hill and vale, the stars gazed calmly down. The steady, powerful droning of the power-plant rose, blent with the soothing murmur of the rapids and the river. "Seems like a lullaby doesn't it, dearest?" murmured Allan. "You know it won't be long now before it's good-by and good night."
"Fields and hedges, hedges and fields; peace and plenty, plenty and peace. I should like to take a foreigner down the vale of Berkshire in the end of May, and ask him what he thought of old England." Thus wrote Charles Kingsley forty years ago, when times were better for Berkshire farmers.
On the Monday morning I resumed my journey, directing my course up the vale of Neath towards Merthyr Tydvil, distant about four-and- twenty miles. The weather was at first rainy, misty and miserable, but improved by degrees. I passed through a village which I was told was called Llanagos; close to it were immense establishments of some kind.
It seemed to lead up, up like a natural causeway, into the recesses of unexplored mountains and forests. The other opening was directly at the southern end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were nothing more than gentle inclinations, extending from east to west about one hundred and fifty yards. In the middle of this extent was a depression, level with the ordinary floor of the valley.
Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was one "cordial in this melancholy vale," the remembrance of it is a blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more constantly operates to an unfavorable comparison with the uninteresting converse I always and only can partake in.
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