A tearing autumn wind drove armies of clouds across the moon, only to sweep them away again at a moment's notice.

The wind itself rose and fell, dropped and struggled up again like a furious wounded animal.
"It will drop at midnight," said Ralph to Charles below his breath, as they walked in the darkness along the road towards Slumberleigh; "and the moon will come out when the wind goes.

I have told Evans and Brooks to go by the fields, and meet us at the cross-roads in the low woods.

It is a good night for us.

We don't want light yet a while; and the more row the wind kicks up till we are in our places ready for them the better." They walked on in silence, nearly missing in the dark the turn for Slumberleigh, where the road branched off to Vandon.
"We must be close upon the river by this time," said Ralph; "but I can't hear it for the wind." The moon came out suddenly, and showed close on their right the mill blocking out the sky, and the dark sweep of the river below, between pale wastes of flooded meadow.