four o'clock
August 20 . Paul had been sent for blue-berries through the Eagle Rock woods to the high upland pasture where the Powers cows fed during the day . On the upper edge of that , skirting a tract of slash left from an old cutting , was a berry-patch , familiar to all the children of Crittenden 's valley . When at four o'clock there was no sign of him , and then at five still none , Marise began to feel uneasy , although she told herself that nothing in the world could happen to Paul on that well-known mountain-side . He had taken Médor with him , who would certainly have come for help if Paul had fallen and hurt himself . She excused herself to the tall , awkward lad from North Ashley come to try over his part in a quartet , asked Touclé to help Elly set the supper things on the table if she should be late , and set off at a rapid pace by the short-cut over the ledges . As she hurried over the rough trail , frankly hastening , now frankly alarmed , she thought that probably for all the life-time of the people in the valley the death of Frank Warner would set a sinister element of lurking danger in those familiar wooded slopes .