"And it would be a sin to stampede over these attractive buttercups," Nare pleaded.
Miss Corcoran relented with a little laugh.
"Really, you are Cockneyer than I thought. Buttercups! It's gorse."
"Same kind of yellow," said Nare.
"And there's the Mill. Now we must hurry."
Woman, it has been said, disposes, but that depends on circumstances. Nare had no desire to hurry, but hurried he certainly would have been if it were not for the episode that occurred at that moment. Afterwards he was grateful for it, but for the time being he would even have preferred hurrying. For, just as he was taking a last look at the Mill, something shadowy, but alive, came stalking slowly away from it towards them.
Involuntarily Nare whistled. In the hazy twilight it was not easy to distinguish shapes exactly, and the desolate moorland with the black bare Mill frowning in its midst, only a single skeleton sail left to show for what purpose it had been built centuries ago, and the utter silence, except for the homing bees, no doubt tended to ghostly thoughts. But either Nare was dreaming or——
"Whatever is that?" cried Miss Corcoran, suddenly catching sight of it. She put a startled hand on his arm, and Nare regained his cheerfulness.
"This Cockney suggests that it's a cow—a stray cow."
"But——"