in
expression of curiosity, I thought, into my face. I remember thinking
that his features, pale and wholly untanned, were rather wonderful for
a countryman, and that the eyes were those of a foreigner; his great
swiftness, too, gave me a distinct sensation--something almost of a
start--though I knew my vision was at fault at the best of times, and
of course especially so in the deceptive twilight of the open hillside.

Moreover--as the way often is with such instructions--the words did not
stay in my mind very clearly after he had uttered them, and the rapid,
panther-like movements of the man as he quickly vanished down the hill
again left me with little more than a sweeping gesture indicating the
line I was to follow. No doubt his sudden rising from behind the
gorse-bush, his curious swiftness, and the way he peered into my face,
and even touched me on the shoulder, all combined to distract my
attention somewhat from the actual words he used; and the fact that I
was travelling at a wrong angle, and should have come out a mile too
far to the right, helped to complete my feeling that his gesture,
pointing the way, was sufficient.

On the crest of the ridge, panting a little with the unwonted exertion,
I lay down to rest a moment on the grass beside a flaming yellow
gorse-bush. There was still a good hour before I should be looked for
at the house; the grass was very soft, the peace and silence soothing.
I lingered, and lit a cigarette. And it was just then, I think, that my
subconscious memory gave back the words, the actual words, the man had
spoken, and the heavy significance of the personal pronoun, as he had
emphasised it in his odd foreign voice, touched me with a sense of
vague amusement: "The safest way _for you_ now," he had said, as though
I was so obviously a townsman and might be in danger on the lonely
hills after dark. And the quick way he had reached my side, and then
slipped off again like a shadow down the steep slope, completed a
definite little picture in my mind. Then other thoughts and memories
rose up and formed a series of pictures, following each other in rapid
succession, and forming a chain of reflections undirected by the will
and without purpose or meaning. I fell, that is, into a pleasant
reverie.

Below me, and infinitely far away, it seemed, the valley lay silent
under a veil of blue evening haze, the lower end losing itself among
darkening hills whose peaks rose here and there like gian