Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the
whole way.

Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
said--

"Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?"

"No, Miss Eustacia," the child replied.

"Well," she said at last, "I shall soon be going in, and then I will
give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home."

"Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia," said the tired stoker, breathing more
easily. And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time
not towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the
wicket before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the
scene.

Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the
fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at
a time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly
watched him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and
stood beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child's
hair, and the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the
breeze died, and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went
up straight.

While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's form visibly
started: he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.

"Well?" said Eustacia.

"A hop-frog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard 'en!"

"Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not
be afraid?" She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her
throat at the boy's words.

"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence."

"Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through
the garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as
yours."

The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving
her telescope and hour-glass by the gate, brushed forward from the
wicket towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.

Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash
was audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would
have said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the
sound would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water.
Eustacia stepped upon the bank.

"Yes?" she said, and held her breath.

Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
He