The altar fire by A.C. Benson

Low-hung ragged grey skies, heaven smeared with watery vapours fleeting, broken and mournful, from the west -- these above me, as I stand by the old lichened gate of the high wind-swept field at the top of the wold. In front a stretch of rough common, the dark-brown heather, the young gorse, bluish-green, the rusty red of soaked bracken, the pale ochre-coloured grass, all blent into a rich tint that pleases the eye with its wild freshness. To the left, the wide flat level of the plain, with low hills rising on its verge; to the right, a pale pool of water at the bottom of a secret valley, reflecting the leafless bushes that fringe it, catches the sunset gleam that rises in the west; and then range after range of wolds, with pale-green pastures, dark copses, fawn-coloured ploughland, here and there an emerald patch of young wheat. The air is fresh, soft and fragrant, laden with rain; the earth smells sweet; and the wild woodland scent comes blowing to me out of the heart of the spinney.

In front of me glimmer the rough wheel-tracks of a grassy road that leads out on to the heath, and two obscure figures move slowly nearer among the tufted gorse. They seem to me, those two figures, charged with a grave significance, as though they came to bear me tidings, messengers bidden to seek and find me, like the men who visited Abraham at the close of the day.