Here we are faced with a curious parallel, offered within the limits of this narrative.  As the old labourer, Blee, had arrived at the same conclusion, then modified it and returned to a creed in the light of subsequent events, so now Will had found himself, on the evening of his child’s funeral, with fresh interests aroused and recent convictions shaken.  An incipient negation of Deity, built upon the trumpery basis of his personal misfortunes, was almost shattered within the week that saw its first existence.  A mystery developed in his path, and startling incidents awoke a new train of credulity akin to that already manifested over the ancient cross.  The man’s uneven mind was tossed from one extreme of opinion to the other, and that element of superstition, from which no untutored intellect in the lap of Nature is free, now found fresh food and put forth a strong root within him.

Returning home, Will approached Phoebe with a purpose to detail the sad, short scene in Chagford churchyard, but his voice rendered her hysterical, so he left her with his mother, put on his working clothes, and wandered out into the farmyard.  Presently he found himself idly regarding a new gate-post:  that which Martin Grimbal formerly brought and left hard by the farm.  Ted Chown had occupied himself in erecting it during the morning.

The spectacle reminded Will of another, and he lifted his eyes to the cross on the undulation spread before him.  As he did so some object appeared to flutter out of sight not far above it, among the rocks and loose ‘clatters’ beneath the summit of the tor.  This incident did not hold Will’s mind, but, prompted to motion, restless, and in the power of dark thoughts, he wandered up the Moor, tramped through the heather, and unwittingly passed within a yard of the monument he had raised upon the hill.  He stood a moment and looked at the cross, then cursed and spat upon it.  The action spoke definitely of a mental chaos unexampled in one who, until that time, had never lacked abundant self-respect.  His deed done, it struck Will Blanchard like a blow; he marvelled bitterly at himself, he knew such an act was pitiful, and remembered that the brain responsible for it was his own.  Then he clenched his hands and turned away, and stood and stared out over the world.

A wild, south-west wind blew, and fitful rain-storms sped separately across the waste.  Over the horizon clouds massed darkly, and the wildernesses spread beneath them were of an inflamed purple.  The seat of the sun was heavily obscured at this moment, and the highest illumination cast from sky to earth broke from the north.  The effect thus imparted to the scene, though in reality no more than usual, affected the mind as unnatural, and even sinister in its operation of unwonted chiaro-oscuro.  Presently the sullen clearness of the distance was swept and softened by a storm.  Another, falling some miles nearer, became superimposed upon it.  Immediately the darkness