The doors at the back of the van were open, and there, sitting with his legs dangling above the road, was the handsomest, jolliest gipsy Peter had ever seen. He was singing, and there was laughter in his eyes and round his mouth, and golden ear-rings swung from his ears. He was not young, and he did not look very clean, but he was the happiest, most carefree thing Peter had seen for days. She could not help laughing at him when he looked up and caught her eye as she stood on the bank above him.

"It's a lovely morning," she called.

"Aye," he grinned. "It's the morning to be on the road." Then, as she waved, "Good luck, little chi..."

Peter sighed as she turned back into the wood. She looked at her watch and saw that it was nearly eleven. She had slept for a long time but she did not feel like hurrying. Even so she caught up with the caravan just on the outskirts of Pontesbury. But it took her a few minutes to find the Post Office and buy a stamped envelope for David, and had she realized that she was not likely to be at Seven Gates for lunch. She wondered if she was dawdling a bit because she did not want to go.

Outside the town the road began to climb and, six or seven miles away to the east, Peter saw the rolling grandeur of her own mountain, the Long Mynd. She did not often see it from this side, where its contours were unbroken by the deep valleys, but she could see the purple pine woods in shadow above Appledore, while the sun shone on the still brown bracken and heather on the tableland above. On her left, but nearly due south now, rose the great bulk of the Stiperstones crowned with the black, sinister quartzite rocks of the Devil's Chair.

This was a different mountain - not smooth, rolling and mysterious like the Mynd, but grim, gloomy and cruel. Peter knew there were countless legends and stories about the Stiperstones, and she remembered how she had told Dickie and Mary that the Devil's Chair is empty only when it is visible, but that when it is hidden in the clouds, or by the mists that so suddenly come down in this wild country, then Satan has taken his seat on his throne.