Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/78

 They stepped on the crest of the hill and stood. Below them the black factory belched its livid smoke into the air; and where the wood had been were rows of little houses like boxes, built of dirty yellow brick.

Hood spoke. "And when you shall see the abomination of desolation sitting in the Holy of Holies—isn't that when the world is supposed to end? I wish the world would end now; with you and me standing on a hill."

She was staring at the place with parted lips and more than her ordinary pallor; he knew she understood something monstrous and symbolic in the scene; yet her first remark was jerky and trivial. On the nearest of the yellow brick boxes were visible the cheap colours of various advertisements; and larger than the rest a blue poster proclaiming "Vote for Hunter." With a final touch of tragic bathos, Hood remembered that it was the last and most sensational day of the election. But the girl had already found her voice.

"Is that Dr. Hunter?" she asked with commonplace curiosity; "is he standing for Parliament?"

A load that lay on Hood's mind like a rock suddenly rose like an eagle; and he felt as if the hill he stood on were higher than Everest.