“Margaret!” Her name startled her in the oppressive stillness; she was glad to rise and go to him, away from that shadowy place.
“The clouds are breaking fast,” he said. “It will not rain; I am going to light a fire.”
“A fire! Why, it is too warm now.”
“Not for heat, but as a beacon. Some shepherd may see it, and come to us.”
“Indeed he would not,”—a little petulantly, for she was overtired. “He would be afraid, and say it was Jack o’ the Lanthorn.”
“Well, I will try; possibly a farmer may see it.”
“But where is your fuel? You cannot see to pick up sticks in the copse.”
“I stumbled on two hurdles just now; one has been thatched with straw.”
“I know; that is what the shepherds prop up with a stake, and sit behind as a shelter from the wind.”
“And the furze-bush here will burn.” She watched him tear some leaves out of his pocket-book, and place the fragments under the furze; then he added a little straw from the thatched hurdle, and a handful of dry grass.