But her own movement had given her courage, or perhaps she feared to remain; for she paused no longer at the gate. Noiselessly she opened it and passed through. Then closing it, she stood for a moment, looking back. Down the lane a light glimmered, fitfully, seen through tree-branches—Tetherstones.
Her eyes sought it with a certain wistfulness, dwelt upon it, then resolutely, with a sigh half-checked she turned and mounted the hill, walking rapidly and soundlessly over the short grass beside the track. Nearer and nearer she drew to the Stones in their gaunt splendour, and the spell of the place encompassed her like an enchantment; but she hesitated no more. Firmly, steadfastly, she pursued her way.
Once indeed she gave a great start as a horned creature blundered suddenly up in front of her, and dashed away with clattering feet over the scattered stones, but she checked her instinctive alarm with swift self-assertion. It was only a goat more startled than herself. What was there to fear?
She came at last into the great circle, pushing through coarse straggling grass till she reached the smooth, boulder-strewn turf where the sheep and the goats had grazed. And here she stopped and looked around her in the moonlight with the feeling strong upon her that she was being watched.
Again, with an effort of will, she dismissed the thought. It was the stark emptiness of the place that induced it; of that she was certain. For there was no sign of movement anywhere; only the great Tether Stones standing round, a grim challenge to the centuries. She turned slowly after a time and faced the Rocking Stone. More than ever now in the moonlight had it the appearance of rolling towards her, as though set in motion by some unseen hand. And she shuddered as she watched it. The eeriness of the place was beginning to fold itself around her irresistibly, almost suffocatingly.
“Why should I be afraid?” she whispered to herself, clenching her hands desperately to keep down the panic that was knocking at her heart. “There is nothing here to hurt me. They are only stones.”
Only stones! Yet they seemed to threaten her by their very immobility, their coldness, their silence. She was an intruder in their midst, and whichever way she turned that sensation of being watched went with her, oppressed her. The hooting of the owl in the distance was somehow like the calling of a lost spirit, wandering to and fro, seeking rest—and finding none. . . . There was no other sound in all the world, though her ears were strained to listen. Even the music of the streams was hushed up here.