We had met in the hall as we had planned, and, wrapped in our plaids
because the early morning air was cold, we tramped away together. No one
but myself could ever realize what it was like. I had never known that
there could be such a feeling of companionship in the world. It would
not have been necessary for us to talk at all if we had felt silent. We
should have been saying things to each other without words. But we did
talk as we walked--in quiet voices which seemed made quieter by the
mist, and of quiet things which such voices seemed to belong to.

We crossed the park to a stile in a hedge where a path led at once on to
the moor. Part of the park itself had once been moorland, and was dark
with slender firs and thick grown with heather and broom. On the moor
the mist grew thicker, and if I had not so well known the path we might
have lost ourselves in it. Also I knew by heart certain little streams
that rushed and made guiding sounds which were sometimes loud whispers
and sometimes singing babbles. The damp, sweet scent of fern and heather
was in our nostrils; as we climbed we breathed its freshness.

"There is a sort of unearthly loveliness in it all," Hector MacNairn
said to me. His voice was rather like his mother's. It always seemed to
say so much more than his words.

"We might be ghosts," I answered. "We might be some of those the mist
hides because they like to be hidden."

"You would not be afraid if you met one of them?" he said.

"No. I think I am sure of that. I should feel that it was only like
myself, and, if I could hear, might tell me things I want to know."