His look thanked her.  But he did not pursue the subject.

Then Geoffrey and Lucy Friend came in, and there was much talk of plans, and a merry dinner a quatre.  Afterwards, the rain seemed to have cleared off a little, and through the yellow twilight a thin stream of people, driving or on foot, began to pour past the inn, towards the hills.  Helena ran upstairs to put on an oilskin hat and cape over her white dress.

“You’re coming to help light the bonfire?” said Geoffrey, addressing Philip.

Buntingford shook his head.  He turned to Lucy.

“You and I will let the young ones go—­won’t we?  I don’t see you climbing Moel Dun in the rain, and I’m getting too old!  We’ll walk up the road a bit, and look at the people as they go by.  I daresay we shall see as much as the other two.”

So the other two climbed, alone and almost in silence.  Beside them and in front of them, scattered up and along the twilight fell, were dim groups of pilgrims bent on the same errand with themselves.  It was not much past nine o’clock, and the evening would have been still light but for the drizzle of rain and the low-hanging clouds.  As it was, those bound for the beacon-head had a blind climb up the rocks and the grassy slopes that led to the top.  Helena stumbled once or twice, and Geoffrey caught her.  Thenceforward he scarcely let her go again.  She protested at first, mountaineer that she was; but he took no heed, and presently the warmth of his strong clasp seemed to hypnotize her.  She was silent, and let him pull her up.

On the top was a motley crowd of farmers, labourers and visitors, with a Welsh choir from a neighbouring village, singing hymns and patriotic songs.  The bonfire was to be fired on the stroke of ten, by a neighbouring landowner, whose white head and beard flashed hither and thither through the crowd and the mist, as he gave his orders, and greeted the old men, farmers and labourers, he had known for a lifetime.  The sweet Welsh voices rose in the “Men of Harlech,” “Land of My Fathers,” or in the magnificent “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord.”  And when the moment arrived, and the white-haired Squire, with his three chosen men, fired the four corners of the high-built pile, out rushed the blaze, flaring up to heaven, defying the rain, and throwing its crimson glow on the faces ringed round it.  “God Save the King!” challenged the dark, and then, hand in hand, the crowd marched round about the pyramid of fire in measured rhythm, while “Auld Lang Syne,” sorrowfully sweet, echoed above the haunted mountain-top where in the infancy of Britain, Celt and Roman in succession had built their camps and reared their watch-towers.  And presently from all quarters of the great horizon sprang the answering flames from mountain peaks that were themselves invisible in the murky night, while they sent forward yet, without fail or break, the great torch-race of victory, leaping on, invincible by rain or dark, far into the clouded north.