noon
The expanse seen from this lofty standpoint extended like a mighty map , here revealing a patchwork of multicoloured fields , here exhibiting tracts of wild waste and wood , here beautifully indicating by a misty line , seen across ascending planes of forest , the course of the distant river , here revealing the glitter of remote waters damaskeened with gold . Little farms and outlying habitations were scattered upon the land ; and beyond them , rising steadily to the sky-line , the regions of the Moor revealed their larger attributes , wider expanses , more savage and abrupt configurations of barren heath and weathered tor . The day passed gradually from gloom to brightness , and the distance , already bathed in light , gleamed out of a more sombre setting , where the foreground still reflected the shadows of departing clouds , like a picture of great sunshine framed in darkness . But the last vapours quickly vanished ; the day grew very hot and , as the sky indicated noon , all things beneath Clement 's eyes were soaked in a splendour of June sunlight . He watched a black thread lying across a meadow five miles away . First it stretched barely visible athwart the distance green ; in half an hour it thickened without apparent means ; within an hour it had absorbed an eighth part at least of the entire space . Though the time was very unusual for tilling of land , Hicks knew that the combined operations of three horses , a man , and a plough were responsible for this apparition , and he speculated as to how many tremendous physical and spiritual affairs of life are thus wrought by agents not visible to the beholder .