Mistress Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the sky.

The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness.
The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange with a wild clear scented sweetness.

Colin kept lifting his thin chest to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they which were listening--listening, instead of his ears.
"There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he said.

"What is that scent the puffs of wind bring ?" "It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon.

"Eh! th' bees are at it wonderful to-day." Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took.
In fact every gardener or gardener's lad had been witched away.