Would that be the same man you know ?" "It will be the same man." "Did you know his people ?" asked the other curiously.
But Alec had no thought of being questioned.

He brought the speaker back to his place as historian, and he, nothing loth, told of the intended meeting on the mountain, and of the white ascension robes, in his ignorant, blatant fashion, laying bare the whole pathetic absurdity of it.
Two ribald listeners, who had evidently been in some choir, paced arm in arm, singing the responses to the Litany in melodramatic fashion, except when their voices were choked with loud laughter at their own wit.
Pushed by the disagreeableness of these surroundings, and by keen interest in the old man who had once visited him, Alec decided on the walk.

The mountain was nearer than the village; he hoped to reach it in time.

He was told to keep on the same road till he came to the river, to follow its bank for about a mile, and when he saw the buildings of a farm just under the hill, to turn up a lane which would lead him by the house to the principal ascent.

He walked out into the night.
At first he was full of thoughts, but after walking a while, fatigue and monotony made him dull.