Not a dead leaf fell; and where the leaves had fallen there they lay.

How was it, then, that a twig broke?
The deer were couched; the pheasants sat at roost, their heads beneath that splendid coverlet, their wing; and though there were creeping things which even midnight did not woo to rest in that vast wilderness, Yorke had imbibed enough of forest lore to know that the noise which he had heard was produced by none of these.

A rat in the water-rushes, or a stoat pushing through the undergrowth, would have announced itself in a different fashion.

Again the sound was heard, and this time it was no longer the crackling of a twig, but the breaking of a branch; then cautious footsteps fell upon the frosty leaves, and, with a light leap on the bank that fringed the copse, the poacher stood in the open.
That such he was, Yorke had no doubt whatever; the moonlight streamed full upon him, and showed him to be none of the Crompton keepers, unless, indeed, he was disguised.

For an instant, it passed across his mind that this might be Walter Grange himself--he was about the same height and build--come to play a trick upon him to test his courage, for the man's face was blackened like a burglar's; but this idea was dismissed as soon as entertained.