On past the steep wall of an ancient chalk-quarry, spotted with red streaks and stains as of rusty iron, where the plough-boys search for pyrites, and call them thunderbolts and "gold," for when broken the radial metallic fibres glisten yellow. Past a field of oats, rising hardly a foot high in the barren soil--in the corner an upturned plough with rusty share and wooden handles painted red. Down below in the plains between the hills squares of drooping barley and bold upstanding wheat, whose tender green the sun had invaded with advancing hues of gold. Over all the brooding silence of the summer eve, one brown lark alone singing in the air above the plain, far away from the distant ridge the faint tinkle of a sheep-bell. Now the sun was down the lower eastern atmosphere thickened with a dull red; the shepherds discerned the face of the sky, and said to-morrow would be fine. Up the steep side of the "Tump" at last, slackening speed perforce, and checking the grey on the summit. It was a great round hill, detached, and somewhat like a huge bowl inverted, with a small circular level space, on what at a distance seemed an almost pointed apex, a space bare of aught but close-cropped herbage. Westwards was the dim vale, a faint mist blotting out steeple and tower--a mist blending with the sky at the horizon, and there all aglow. Eastwards, ridge upon ridge, hill after hill, with spurs running out into the narrow plains between, and deep coombes. He gazed earnestly over these, looking for signs and landmarks, but found none. The rough trail was lost--the hoof marks cut in the winter when the earth was soft were filled up by the swelling turf, and covered over with thyme. Those who laboured by day in the plains, weeding the fields, were gone down to their homes in the hamlets hidden in the valleys. At a venture he struck direct for the east, anxious to lose no time; for he began to fear he should miss Margaret, and soon afterwards luckily crossed the path of a shepherd-lad, whistling as he and his shaggy dog wended for "whoam." "Which is the way to Mr Fisher's?" asked Geoffrey. "Thaay be goin' into th' Mash to-morrow," answered the boy, whose thoughts were differently engaged. "Tell me the way to Mr Fisher's--the Warren." "We be got shart o' keep; wants zum rain, doan't 'ee zee?" "Can't you answer a question?" "Thur's a main sight o' tackle in the Mash vor um." He was so used to being stopped and asked about his sheep that he took it for granted Geoffrey was putting the same accustomed interrogatories. Every farmer cross-examines his neighbour's shepherd when he meets him. The "Mash" was doubtless a meadow reclaimed from a marsh. "Land be terrable dry, zur." "Will you listen to me?" angrily. "Where's the Warren?" "Aw, mebbe you means ould Fisher's?" "I mean Mr Fisher's." "A' be auver thur," pointing north-east. "How far?"