The mood did not leave
me till I had reached the rim of mountain and flung myself panting
on a ridge high above the young waters of the brown river.
From my vantage-ground I could scan the whole moor right
away to the railway line and to the south of it where green fields
took the place of heather. I have eyes like a hawk, but I could see
nothing moving in the whole countryside. Then I looked east
beyond the ridge and saw a new kind of landscape--shallow green
valleys with plentiful fir plantations and the faint lines of dust
which spoke of highroads. Last of all I looked into the blue May
sky, and there I saw that which set my pulses racing ...
Low down in the south a monoplane was climbing into the
heavens. I was as certain as if I had been told that that aeroplane
was looking for me, and that it did not belong to the police. For an
hour or two I watched it from a pit of heather. It flew low along
the hill-tops, and then in narrow circles over the valley up which I
had come' Then it seemed to change its mind, rose to a great
height, and flew away back to the south.
I did not like this espionage from the air, and I began to think
less well of the countryside I had chosen for a refuge. These
heather hills were no sort of cover if my enemies were in the sky,
and I must find a different kind of sanctuary. I looked with more
satisfaction to the green country beyond the ridge, for there I
should find woods and stone houses.
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