They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting, she in her terror and he in his agony.

“Take me away,” she said.  “Out of the house.  That room frightened me.  There’s something there.”

“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.”

Greatorex stood scanning the hill.

“‘Tis Nad, wi’ t’ dawg, drivin’ t’ sheep.”

“Oh, Jim, he’ll see us.”

“Nat he!”

But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.

“He’ll come down the fields.  He’ll be sure to see us.”

“Ef he doos, caann’t I walk in my awn fealds wi’ my awn sweetheart?”

“I don’t want to be seen,” she moaned.

“Wall—?” he pushed open the door of the barn.  “Wae’ll creep in here than, tall he’s paassed.”

A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, narrow slits in the walls.  From the open floor of the loft there came the sweet, heavy scent of hay.

“He’ll see the door open.  He’ll come in.  He’ll find us here.”

“He wawn’t.”

But Jim shut the door.

“We’re saafe enoof.  But ’tis naw plaace for yo.  Yo’ll mook yore lil feet.  Staay there—­where yo are—­tell I tall yo.”

He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair.  She heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.

He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall.  The sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair.  The dust danced in it.

Jim stood on the stair.  He smiled down at Alice where she waited below.

“Coom oop into t’ haay loft, Ally.”

He stooped.  He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.

They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of children who crouch hiding in their play.  He had strewn for her a carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.