It flew low along the hill-tops, and then in narrow circles over the valley up which I had come' Then it seemed to change its mind, rose to a great height, and flew away back to the south.
I did not like this espionage from the air, and I began to think less well of the countryside I had chosen for a refuge.

These heather hills were no sort of cover if my enemies were in the sky, and I must find a different kind of sanctuary.

I looked with more satisfaction to the green country beyond the ridge, for there I should find woods and stone houses.
About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream.

As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight.

The road swung over a bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man.
He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes.