"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t' fealds?"
* * * * *
The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the mistal.
Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began. It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.
The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched beside it.
Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There was neither thought nor purpose in their going.
The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and hill.
Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.
Alice stopped in the track and turned.
"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."