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“That’s not philosophic, John.”

“Anyway, if theer’s danger in my maid to you, then turn your back upon her. I sez it wi’ all respects as man to master; an’ as man to man, I’ll say more, an’ bid you be a man an’ look any way but that. Ess fay, I sez it, though not worthy to hold a cannel to ’e. An’ what’s more, I trust ’e.”

To Timothy’s relief John did not delay for an answer to his exhortation, but proceeded upon his way. So they parted, by curious chance, at that spot where to-day there rise the mound and aged thorn. The Moor was of a uniform and sullen iron colour under a sky of like hue but paler shade. The north wind still blew, but the clouds were lower, denser and heavy with snow. Even as Aggett went down the hill and his rival proceeded upward, there came fluttering out of the grey the first scattered flakes of a long-delayed downfall. They floated singly, wide-scattered on the wind; others followed; here a monstrous fragment, undulating like a feather, capsized in the invisible currents of the air. Then the swarm thickened and hurried horizontally in puffs and handfuls. The clean black edges of the distant Moor were now swept and softened with a mist of falling snow; aloft, thicker and faster, came the flakes, huddling and leaping out of nothingness and appearing as dark grey specks against the lighter sky. Presently indication of change marked the world, and a glimmer of virgin white under on-coming gloom outlined sheep tracks and made ghostly the grey boulders of the Moor. By nightfall the great snow had fairly begun, and blinding blizzards were screaming over the Moor on the wings of a gale of wind.