Only two or three loud sobs seemed to come back from the dark hollow below.

As for the boy, he stopped a second to disentangle his feet from the mop and the tattered sheet wherewith Louie had worked her transformation scene.

Then he dashed up the hill again, past the smithy, and into a track leading out on to the high road between Castleton and Clough End.

He did not care where he went.

Five minutes ago he had been almost in heaven; now he was in hell.