The larks were soon lost to sight as they soared overhead, singing faintly as they rose; the rooks gave prolonged and melancholy caws as they took their early flight, and the cocks crowed querulously in the yard, while now and then there was a pitiful bleat from the old ewe which had lost her lamb.
In the intervals of sound, the stillness was more profound, and there was a sense of oppression hanging over everything, which even Ambrose felt.
The moor stretched away in the haze, which gave the hillocks of gorse and heather and the slight eminences of the open ground an unnatural size.
Every moment Mary hoped to see the shepherd's well-known figure looming before her in the mist with the lamb in his arms, but no shepherd appeared.
'We must turn our steps back again, Ambrose. Perhaps the shepherd has gone down into the valley, and it is chill and damp for you to be out longer; when the sun gets up it will be warmer.'
She had scarcely spoken, when a figure appeared through the haze, like every other object, looking unnaturally large.
'Quick, Ambrose,' she said, 'quick!' and, seizing the child's hand, she began to run at her utmost speed along the sheep-path towards the stile leading into the Manor grounds, near the farmyard.
The child looked behind to see what had frightened his mother.
'It's the big black man!' he said.
But Mary made no answer. She ran on, regardless of hillocks and big stones—heedless of her steps, and thinking only of her pursuer.