midnight
Nothing stirred , or , if so , it was motion without sound , as when the full-feathered owl slid softly through the midnight air above him . Not a dead leaf fell ; and where the leaves had fallen there they lay . How was it , then , that a twig broke ? The deer were couched ; the pheasants sat at roost , their heads beneath that splendid coverlet , their wing ; and though there were creeping things which even midnight did not woo to rest in that vast wilderness , Yorke had imbibed enough of forest lore to know that the noise which he had heard was produced by none of these . A rat in the water-rushes , or a stoat pushing through the undergrowth , would have announced itself in a different fashion . Again the sound was heard , and this time it was no longer the crackling of a twig , but the breaking of a branch ; then cautious footsteps fell upon the frosty leaves , and , with a light leap on the bank that fringed the copse , the poacher stood in the open . That such he was , Yorke had no doubt whatever ; the moonlight streamed full upon him , and showed him to be none of the Crompton keepers , unless , indeed , he was disguised .