"I heard a cuckoo just now," said Mark.
"Yes, out of tune already."
"Mm, rather out of tune. Mind those nettles," he warned her.
"I thought Stephen said he drove here."
"Perhaps we've come the wrong way. I believe the road forked by the ash wood above. Anyway if we go toward the sun we shall come out in the valley, and we can walk back along the banks of the river to Wychford."
"We can always go back through the wood," said Esther.
"Yes, if you don't mind going back the way you came."
"Come on," she snapped. She was not going to be laughed at by Mark, and she dared him to deny that he was not as much aware as herself of an eeriness in the atmosphere.
"Only because it seems dark in here after that dazzling sunlight on the wold. Hark! I hear the sound of water."
They struggled through the undergrowth toward the sound; soon from a steep wooded bank they were gazing down into a millpool, the surface of which reflected with a gloomy deepening of their hue the colour but not the form of the trees above. Water was flowing through a rotten sluice gate down from the level of the stream upon a slimy water-wheel that must have been out of action for many years.