They debated whether speech or silence was the better for Jacob, and agreed that his passion, venting itself in words, served to let the poison free. The occasional periods of taciturnity, when Jacob would not speak, or eat, or even move sometimes for many hours, they believed the more dangerous signals. So they watched him and did what they might, which was little; while Auna, grown to a woman in mind, kept as near to her father as possible, studied his every mood and learned in time how best to meet each wave of feeling, where to oppose, where to heap endearments, where to talk and throw herself into the subject of the moment, where to listen and make no answer that might fret.
There came a day when a harsh cold fell upon the moors and Robert Elvin rode to bring in some of his ponies. Beyond Ugborough's rocky summit, where its ramparts rose above the grey web of the forest, the waste swept in featureless folds northerly for mile on mile. All was now sombre, iron rusty and black. Sad-coloured garments held the hills and over them a wind from the north-east swept, dry and bitter in the blade. It brought a haze to lessen the austerity of the winter heath, and it made a low whimper, which rose and fell, now brushing the sharper sound of running waters to the ear, now deadening their murmur as it lulled, now increasing to gusts, that woke a tinkle from the dead heather and hummed to a deeper note upon the granite face of some great stone. Where the hills fell to each other's feet, rillets ran winding irregular threads among the boulders; and here was the highest light of these far-flung sobrieties; where, at fall and ripple, flashed grey foam, or spread some still and limpid pool to reflect the ash-coloured sky.
It seemed that winter had uttered an ultimate note, that the vitality of earth was sunk to its lowest, that her heart beat more slowly and her sleep sounded deeper than at any day until now. It was the dark hour before the dawn of another year and inanimate life seemed to have receded beneath the surface of things, while animate life had retreated to the greater comfort of the low lands.
Robert found his ponies, a dozen of them, clustered knee-deep in dead fern on the lee of a tor. They were dejected and showed pleasure at his coming. He sent his dog forward and soon the little cavalcade was trotting off the hills, down through a long and narrow coomb which opened above Owley, two miles to the south.
Then suddenly he came upon his father-in-law sitting as still as the stone under him. It was uplifted by the way in the eye of the harsh wind; yet Jacob reposed indifferent, gazing over the moor, his stick beside him, his hands clasped together. Robert stopped, dismounted and approached.
"Hullo, father! You didn't ought to be up here in this wind," he said and extended his hand. Jacob shook it and apparently proceeded with his thoughts aloud.
"I like to feel my marrow growing cold inside the bones. It teaches you how it'll be at the end, when the last cold comes that no fire can heat again. The crested plovers are all gone from the moor, Bob Elvin. You see them, so wise and dainty are they, running about in the lew fields and round the corn-stacks, like little pixy people. And they lift their kitten cries to keep themselves warm. But when the weather breaks, they'll soon fly back to their haunts again."
"So they will then. Get moving now. Drop in and have a tell with us at Owley and a good cup of tea to warm you. I'm taking my ponies down to the yard for shelter. Thank the Lord we're well to do for hay this year; the cattle can spare them a bite. We've got enough for all."
"I'm troubled for the foxes, however. There's no security in nature, Robert. All hand to mouth; and the rabbits lie so low, and there's not a beetle or a frog moving."
Robert laughed.