. First,
a little breath of wind brushed with a dry whispering sound through the
hedges, the few leaves left on the boughs began to stir, and one or two
danced madly, and as the wind freshened and came up from a new quarter,
the sapless branches above rattled against one another like bones. The
growing breeze seemed to clear the air and lighten it. He was passing the
stile where a path led to old Mrs. Gibbon's desolate little cottage, in
the middle of the fields, at some distance even from the lane, and he saw
the light blue smoke of her chimney rise distinct above the gaunt
greengage trees, against a pale band that was broadening along the
horizon. As he passed the stile with his head bent, and his eyes on the
ground, something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge,
and in the strange twilight, now tinged with a flush from the west, a
figure seemed to swim past him and disappear. For a moment he wondered
who it could be, the light was so flickering and unsteady, so unlike the
real atmosphere of the day, when he recollected it was only Annie Morgan,
old Morgan's daughter at the White House. She was three years older than
he, and it annoyed him to find that though she was only fifteen, there
had been a dreadful increase in her height since the summer holidays. He
had got to the bottom of the hill, and, lifting up his eyes, saw the
strange changes of the sky. The pale band had broadened into a clear vast
space of light, and above, the heavy leaden clouds were breaking apart
and driving across the heaven before the wind. He stopped to watch,
and looked up at the great mound that jutted out from the hills into
mid-valley. It was a natural formation, and always it must have had
something of the form of a fort, but its steepness had been increased by
Roman art, and there were high banks on the summit which Lucian's father
had told him were the _vallum_ of the camp, and a deep ditch had been dug
to the north to sever it from the hillside. On this summit oaks had
grown, queer stunted-looking trees with twisted and contorted trunks, and
writhing branches; and these now stood out black against the lighted sky.
And then the air changed once more; the flush increased, and a spot like
blood appeared in the pond by the gate, and all the clouds were touched
with fiery spots and dapples of flame; here and there it looked as if
awful furnace doors were being opened.

The wind blew wildly, and it came up through the woods w