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.
'On a night like this, we're all a little lost,' Mr. Steep said. 'There's no blame there.'
'Maybe he should come home with us,' Rosa suggested. 'You could light one of your fires for him.'
'Hush yourself,' Jacob snapped. 'I will not have talk of fires when this boy is so bitter cold. Where are your wits?'
'As you like,' the woman replied. 'It's no matter to me either way. But you should have seen him take the hare. He was on it like a tiger, he was.'
'I was lucky,' Will said, 'that's all.'
Mr. Steep drew a deep breath, and to Will's great delight descended the slope a yard or two more. 'Can you get up?' he asked Will.
'Of course I can,' Will replied, and did so.
Though Mr. Steep had halved the distance between them, the darkness had deepened a little further, and his features were just as hard to fathom. 'I wonder, looking at you, if we weren't meant to meet on this hill,' he said softly. 'I wonder if that's the luck of this night, for us all.' Will was still trying hard to get a better sense of what Steep looked like; to put a face to the voice that moved him so deeply, but his eyes weren't equal to the challenge. 'The hare, Mrs. McGee.'
'What about it?'
'We should set it free.'
'After the chase it led me?' Rosa replied. 'You're out of your mind.'
'We owe it that much, for leading us to Will.'
'I'll thank it as I skin it, Jacob, and that's my final word on the thing. My God, you're impractical. Throwing away good food. I'll not have it.' Before Steep could protest further she snatched up the sack, and was away down the slope.
Only now, watching her descend, did Will realize that the worst of the storm had blown over. The rainfall had mellowed to a drizzle, the murk was melting away; he could even see lights glimmering in the valley. He was relieved, certainly, but not as much as he thought he'd be. There was comfort in the prospect of returning home, but that meant leaving the company of the dark man at his back, who even now lay a heavy, leather-gloved hand upon his shoulder.