midnight
She was going after _ him _ -- no matter where ; she was resolved to know who and what it was that was leading him away , as her heart told her , to no good . Deeper and deeper into the shadows of the forest they went , and the child easily kept up with them . Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this lonely wood , and knew all its rocks and dells the whole three miles to the long bridge at the other end of the island . But she had never before seen it under the solemn stillness of midnight moonlight , which gives to the most familiar objects such a strange , ghostly charm . After they had gone a mile into the forest , she could see through the black spruces silver gleams of the sea , and hear , amid the whirr and sway of the pine-tops , the dash of the ever restless tide which pushed up the long cove . It was at the full , as she could discern with a rapid glance of her practiced eye , expertly versed in the knowledge of every change of the solitary nature around . And now the party began to plunge straight down the rocky ledge of the Devil 's Back , on which they had been walking hitherto , into the deep ravine where lay the cove .