Look up! Every leafless bough of yonder lofty elder-tree is thick with birds.

Listen! A moment, and their song has ceased; they have risen on the wing; they are gone like a cloud Of black rain through the white feathery air.

Then silence everywhere.
Was it God's sign and symbol--God's message to the soul of this stricken man?
God's truce?
Who shall say it was not! "A load is lifted off my heart," said Ralph.

He was thinking of the terrible night he had spent on the fells.

And indeed there was the light of another look in his face.