about noon
`` I shall not give you up , '' he muttered . Barbara 's answer was a smile , faintly curious , compassionate , yet almost grateful , as if she had said : `` Thank you -- who knows ? '' And rather quickly , a yard or so apart , and talking of horses , they returned to the house . It was about noon , when , accompanied by Courtier , she rode forth . The Sou-Westerly spell -- a matter of three days -- had given way before radiant stillness ; and merely to be alive was to feel emotion . At a little stream running beside the moor under the wild stone man , the riders stopped their horses , just to listen , and , inhale the day . The far sweet chorus of life was tuned to a most delicate rhythm ; not one of those small mingled pipings of streams and the lazy air , of beasts , men ; birds , and bees , jarred out too harshly through the garment of sound enwrapping the earth .