ready.
Two things only I remember as I went through the door: her black eyes looking at me, deep as a well; and her voice, weakened again by her fever, saying, âIâll look for you by moonlight.â
What did she mean? Was it her confused mind, the fever talking? Perhaps that was not what she said. Perhaps her real words had floated away onto the whistling of the wind outside. Who knows?
I did not have time to wonder. I plunged into the thinly swirling snow, pulling my hat down tightly and gathering my cloak around my body. I tried not to think how much I would rather be sheltered and safe in that ruin with her, than out here, alone.
As fast as I could, I marched down the road and away from the village. I knew I must walk some six or seven miles along this road, perhaps for an hour and a half if I kept up a steady speed. Indeed, when I had been walking for what I reckoned must be such a length of time, and with a twilight gloom beginning to fall, I came to a crossroads, with just the signpost Bess had described. I took the left turning and continued up the lane, towards unfamiliar hills.
In the winter afternoon, the ghostly silence of the moors wrapped me up and drew me into their dangers and mysteries. I shivered and hunched my cloak more tightly around me.
Would I find Bessâs home, and her horse? Or would a passer-by find me some days later, a stiff corpse, and wonder who I might be?
Chapter Fourteen
S now starts as something mysterious, something wonderful and magical. On the moors it can quickly turn dangerous. Landmarks disappear and trees change their shape for the approaching traveller. I did not know the landscape even without the snow. With it, I lost my sense of direction.
But Bessâs instructions were clearly given, drummed into me in that impatient way of hers. She had told me to follow the lane upwards until I came to a row of six poplar trees. These I quickly found. From here I was to leave the lane and continue in the same direction as the trees, always heading upwards, until I came to the brow of the hill. There I would find a standing-stone, shaped like a cross, and on this cross I would find marked the four points of the compass. North-east from here, and no more than thirty paces, I would find a wall with a stile, which I should climb, and then follow the line of the wall, downwards and then up the next hill. At some point, I would have to leave the wall, but I should always aim for a hill of a particular shape, which she drew for me in the dirt. Over the brow of this hill, I was to search for the source of a stream, amongst some large boulders on the very edge of a small pine wood. Bess said it would take not much more than an hour if I made good progress.
Driven by fear of becoming lost, and of being frozen to death, I kept up good speed and, less than an hour later, found myself at the top of the hill, breathless and sweating despite the cold. I looked in all directions, peering through the softly swirling snow. Where was the stone cross?
Which way? Either was possible. A mistake could herald disaster, as the snow was now falling so thickly that my footsteps were covered within minutes of being made.
It was by now late afternoon and the winter light was fading fast, grey gloom shrouding everything. I could see only a few yards ahead of me and the shapes of rocks and trees were like ghosts, staring at me through the veil of snow, waiting to see which way I would go.
I did not have much time if I were to reach the bottom of the valley before darkness fell completely. Bessâs home was over there somewhere, on the other side, but I had to choose the right path down the hillside or I would find myself in a treacherous marsh. Bess had warned me, though I already knew well enough the stories of people walking to their death on these moors, the ground turning to lethal silt without warning to those ignorant or foolish enough to venture into this region unprepared.
I had to
Two things only I remember as I went through the door: her black eyes looking at me, deep as a well; and her voice, weakened again by her fever, saying, âIâll look for you by moonlight.â
What did she mean? Was it her confused mind, the fever talking? Perhaps that was not what she said. Perhaps her real words had floated away onto the whistling of the wind outside. Who knows?
I did not have time to wonder. I plunged into the thinly swirling snow, pulling my hat down tightly and gathering my cloak around my body. I tried not to think how much I would rather be sheltered and safe in that ruin with her, than out here, alone.
As fast as I could, I marched down the road and away from the village. I knew I must walk some six or seven miles along this road, perhaps for an hour and a half if I kept up a steady speed. Indeed, when I had been walking for what I reckoned must be such a length of time, and with a twilight gloom beginning to fall, I came to a crossroads, with just the signpost Bess had described. I took the left turning and continued up the lane, towards unfamiliar hills.
In the winter afternoon, the ghostly silence of the moors wrapped me up and drew me into their dangers and mysteries. I shivered and hunched my cloak more tightly around me.
Would I find Bessâs home, and her horse? Or would a passer-by find me some days later, a stiff corpse, and wonder who I might be?
Chapter Fourteen
S now starts as something mysterious, something wonderful and magical. On the moors it can quickly turn dangerous. Landmarks disappear and trees change their shape for the approaching traveller. I did not know the landscape even without the snow. With it, I lost my sense of direction.
But Bessâs instructions were clearly given, drummed into me in that impatient way of hers. She had told me to follow the lane upwards until I came to a row of six poplar trees. These I quickly found. From here I was to leave the lane and continue in the same direction as the trees, always heading upwards, until I came to the brow of the hill. There I would find a standing-stone, shaped like a cross, and on this cross I would find marked the four points of the compass. North-east from here, and no more than thirty paces, I would find a wall with a stile, which I should climb, and then follow the line of the wall, downwards and then up the next hill. At some point, I would have to leave the wall, but I should always aim for a hill of a particular shape, which she drew for me in the dirt. Over the brow of this hill, I was to search for the source of a stream, amongst some large boulders on the very edge of a small pine wood. Bess said it would take not much more than an hour if I made good progress.
Driven by fear of becoming lost, and of being frozen to death, I kept up good speed and, less than an hour later, found myself at the top of the hill, breathless and sweating despite the cold. I looked in all directions, peering through the softly swirling snow. Where was the stone cross?
Which way? Either was possible. A mistake could herald disaster, as the snow was now falling so thickly that my footsteps were covered within minutes of being made.
It was by now late afternoon and the winter light was fading fast, grey gloom shrouding everything. I could see only a few yards ahead of me and the shapes of rocks and trees were like ghosts, staring at me through the veil of snow, waiting to see which way I would go.
I did not have much time if I were to reach the bottom of the valley before darkness fell completely. Bessâs home was over there somewhere, on the other side, but I had to choose the right path down the hillside or I would find myself in a treacherous marsh. Bess had warned me, though I already knew well enough the stories of people walking to their death on these moors, the ground turning to lethal silt without warning to those ignorant or foolish enough to venture into this region unprepared.
I had to
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