’I dare not go to the young woman and ask her to show me her “shadder.”  If she knew I was here she would only try to defeat my purpose.  I can only interview her neighbours; and this first rustic whom I questioned shut himself up like an oyster; if all the rest act in this way, what can I do?  And if I can hear all the vulgar superstition there is to be heard, will there be in the whole of it the indication of a single fact?’

So he mused by the road-side while the sun hung in the dream temple of fire made by the chasm of cloud.  Then the earth moved onward into the night, and he walked on upon his curious errand.

The darkness of evening had already fallen, and he was still about a mile from the village when he discerned a woman coming towards him on the road.  It was the very woman about whom his mind was occupied.  There was a house at one side; the gate leading to it was close to him, and, not wishing to be recognised at the moment, he turned in through it to wait in the darkness of some garden shrubs till she had passed.

But she did not pass.  She came up, walking more and more slowly, till she stood on the road outside the gate.  She looked up and down the road with a hesitating air, and then, clasping her hands behind her, leaned back against a heavy gate-post and composed herself to wait.  There was light enough to see her, for there was a moon behind the clouds, and also what was left of the daylight in the west was glimmering full upon her.  The house was close to the road—­apparently an old farmstead—­turning blank dark walls and roofs to them, so that it was evidently uninhabited or else inhabited only at the other side.  The young woman looked up at it, apparently not without distrust, but even to her keen scrutiny there was no sign of life.  For the rest, the road lay through a glen, the village was out of sight, and the hills around them were like the hills in Hades—­silent, shadowy and cold.

It seemed an unearthly thing that she should have come there to stand and lean against the gate, as if to shut him into his self-sought trap; and there was no impatience about this woman—­she stood quite still in that dark, desolate place, as though she was perfectly contented to wait and wait—­for what? how long?—­these were the questions he asked himself.  Was this dark house the abode of evil spirits with which she was in league? and if so, what result would accrue to him?  There are circumstances which suggest fantastic speculations to the most learned man.

At length he heard a footfall.  He could not tell where at first, but, as it approached, he saw a countryman in a carter’s blouse coming across the opposite field.  He got through the hedge and came toward the gate.  Then the girl spoke in her strong voice and north-country accent, but Skelton would hardly have known the voice again, it was so soft and sad.

’I’ve been waiting on ye, Johnnie; some women thinks shame to be first at the trysting, but that’s not me when I loves ye true.’