But whom?
Of a sudden, while I stood hesitating, blaming myself for being without matches, I heard the movement repeated.

Someone was quickly receding--escaping from the spot.

I listened again.

The sound was not of the rustling of leaves or the crackling of dried sticks, but the low thuds of a man's feet racing over softer ground.

He had scaled the rough stone dyke and was out in the turnip-field adjacent.
I sprang through the gap, straining my eyes into the gloom, and as I did so could just distinguish a dark figure receding quickly beneath the wall of the wood.
In an instant I dashed after it.