The episode with the sheep had delayed him in the Courthouse longer than he'd intended; even as he stepped outside the clouds covered the sun, and a gust of wind, strong enough to bow the grass low as it passed, brought a spatter of rain. He would not now be able to outrun a soaking, he knew, but he was determined not to go back the way he'd come. Instead he'd take a short cut across the fields to the house. He walked to the corner of the Courthouse, and tried to spot his destination, but it was out of sight. He knew its general direction, however; he would simply follow his nose.The rain was getting heavier by the moment, but he didn't mind. The air carried the metallic tang of lightning, sweetened by the scent of wet grass; the heat was already noticeably mellowed. On the fells ahead of him, a few last spears of sunlight were shining through the big-bellied clouds and stabbing the heights.Just as the storm was filling the valley, so it seemed his senses were filled: with the rain, the grass, the tang, the sunlight and thunder. He could not remember ever feeling as he felt now: that he and the world around him were in every particular connected. It made him want to yell with happiness, he felt so full, so found. It was as though, for the first time in his life, something in the world that was not human knew he was there.His blessedness made him fleet. Whooping and shouting he ran through the lashing grass like a crazy, while the clouds sealed off the last of the sun and threw lightning down on the hills.He did his best to hold to the direction he'd set himself, but the rain quickly escalated from a bracing shower to a downpour, and he could soon no longer see slopes that minutes before had been crystalline, so obscured were they by veils of water and cloud. Nor was this his only problem. The first hedgerow he encountered was too thick to be breached and too tall to be clambered over, so he was obliged to go looking for a gate, his trek along the edge of the field disorienting him. It was some time before he found a means of egress: not a gate but a stile, which he hoisted himself over, glancing back at the Courthouse only to find that it too had disappeared from sight.He didn't panic. There were farmhouses scattered all along the valley, and if he did find himself lost then he'd just strike out for the nearest residence and ask for directions. Meanwhile he made an instinctive guess at his route, and ploughed on first through a meadow of rape and then across a field occupied by a herd of cows, several of which had taken refuge under an enormous sycamore. He was almost tempted to join them, but he'd read once that trees were bad spots to shelter during thunderstorms so on he went, through a gate onto a track that was turning into a little brook, and over a second stile into a muddy, deserted field. The rainfall had not slowed a jot, and by now he was soaked to the skin. It was time, he decided, to seek some help. The next track he came to he'd follow till it led him somewhere inhabited; maybe he'd persuade a sympathetic soul to drive him home.

But he walked on for another ten or fifteen minutes without encountering a track, however rudimentary, and now the ground began to slope upwards, so that he was soon having to climb hard. He stopped. This was definitely not the right way. Half-blinded by the freezing downpour he turned three hundred and sixty degrees looking for some clue to his whereabouts, but there were walls of grey rain enclosing him on every side, so he turned his back to the slope and retraced his steps. At least that was what he thought he'd done. Somehow he'd managed to turn himself around, without realizing he'd done so, because after fifty yards the ground again steepened beneath his feet - cascades of water surging over boulders a little way up the slope. The cold and disorientation were bad enough, but what now began to trouble him more was a subtle darkening of the sky. It was not the thunderclouds that were blotting out the light, it was dusk. In a few minutes it would be dark; far darker than it ever got on the streets of Manchester.

He was shivering violently, and his teeth had begun to chatter. His legs were aching, and his rain-pummelled face was numb. He tried yelling for help, but he rapidly gave up in the attempt. Between the din of the storm and the frailty of his voice, he knew after a few yells it was a lost cause. He had to preserve his energies, such as they were. Wait until the storm cleared, when he could work out where he was. It wouldn't be difficult, once the lights of the village started to reappear, as they surely would, sooner or later.

And then, a shout, somewhere in the storm, and something broke cover, racing in front of him

'Catch it!' he heard a raw voice say, and instinctively threw himself down to catch hold of whatever was escaping. His quarry was even more exhausted and disoriented than he, apparently, because his hands caught hold of something lean and furry, which squealed and struggled in his grip.

'Hold it, m'lad! Hold it!'

The speaker now appeared from higher up the slope. It was a woman, dressed entirely in black, carrying a flickering lamp, which burned with a fat yellow-white flame. By its light he saw a face that was more beautiful than any he had seen in his life, its pale perfection framed by a mass of dark red hair.

'You are a treasure,' she said to Will, setting down the lamp. Her accent was not local, but tinged with a little Cockney. 'You just hold that damn hare a minute longer, while I get my bag.'

She set down the lamp, rummaged in the folds of her sleek coat and pulled out a small sack. Then she approached Will and with lightning speed clawed the squealing hare from his arms. It was in the bag and the bag sealed up in moments. 'You're as good as gold, you are,' she said. 'We would have gone hungry, Mr Steep and me, if you hadn't been so quick.' She set down the bag. 'Oh my Lord, look at the state of you,' she said, bending to examine Will more closely. 'What's your name?'

'William.'

'I had a William once,' the woman remarked. 'It's a lovely name.' Her face was close to Will's, and there was a welcome heat in her breath. 'In fact I think I had two. Sweet children, both of 'em.' She reached out and touched Will's cheek. 'Oh but you are cold.'

'I got lost.'

'That's terrible. Terrible,' she said, stroking his face. 'How could any self-respecting mother let you stray out of sight? She should be ashamed, she should. Ashamed.' Will would have concurred, but the warmth seeping from the woman's fingers into his face was curiously soporific.

'Rosa?' somebody said.

'Yes?' the woman replied, her voice suddenly flirty. 'I'm down here, Jacob.'

'Who've you found now?'

'I was just thanking this lad,' Rosa said, removing her hand from Will's face. He was suddenly freezing again. 'He caught us our dinner.'

'Did he indeed?' said Jacob. 'Why don't you step aside, Mrs. McGee, and give me sight of the boy?'

'Sight you want, sight you'll have,' Rosa replied, and getting to her feet she picked up the sack, and moved a short way down the slope.

In the two or three minutes since Will had caught hold of the hare, the sky had darkened considerably, and when Will looked in the direction of Jacob Steep it was hard to see the man clearly. He was tall, that much was clear, and was wearing a long coat with shiny buttons. His face was bearded, and his hair longer than Mrs. McGee's. But his features were a blur to Will's weary eyes.

'You should be at home,' he said. Will shuddered, but this time the cause was not the cold but the warmth of Steep's voice. 'A boy like you, out here alone, could come to some harm or other.'

'He's lost,' Mrs. McGee chimed in.