Deprived of its detail, this is pretty much the story that Antony Blake told Lotty Lee that autumn night as they sat together eating chocolates on the big white stone on Whinny Moor.
And that is how Antony happened to be there.
CHAPTER III.
IN GIPSY CAMP AND CARAVAN.
BRIGHTER and brighter shone the moon, yet it was dark in that great wood, into which the light could hardly penetrate. Solemn as a cathedral, too, with far above them the black roof of interlacing pine-trees.
Only here and there the chequered moonlight streamed downwards on the soft carpet of needled foliage that lay beneath.
Pathway it could scarce have been called, save for the blazed trees, for the boy Chops had done his work well, albeit he had wasted the properties. There were places where the gloom was so complete that Frank Antony had to feel for Lotty to make sure she was still by his side. And neither seemed inclined to break the stillness just then.
The owls and other birds of prey were in evidence here, and once when a pigeon was scared, and flew flapping upwards from its flat nest of heather-stalks or its perch among the pines, some night-bird struck it speedily down. No, not an owl; for owls do feed on mice and rats.
Then they came to a glade, and once more the moon shone merrily above them, and the black shadows of Antony and his companion pointed northwards and west.
'More than half-way home,' said Lotty.
'A strangely impressive scene,' said Antony.