Original subtitles

High above Dartmoor, a solitary bird on an endless journey.

This bird of legend flies on and on across an eternity of summer skies,

further and further from evil.

No destination and no purpose but this, the celebration of its final

freedom.

That summer, the summer which gave birth to the legend of laughter tour, a

stranger came to the southern quarter of the moor.

He was a young man of breeding and education.

His father was in the army.

He returned from overseas and was dismayed to find that his son had become

lazy and London soft.

The boy was promptly dispatched to this remote corner of the kingdom in the

belief that rugged country life would toughen him up.

And so it was that he found himself staying at a manor house on the edge of

the moor, an unwilling guest of a friend of his father, still more so when he

realized the company Devonshire was to offer.

His hosts were wealthy in their estate, impoverished in the social graces,

despite occasional forays into London society.

Mischievously the boy's father had thought this the ideal place

He knew of no acquaintances likely to show less concern for the comfort of his

son.

What are you doing, boy?

Well, I'm just getting... Not like that. The reins first.

Thank you, sir.

Teach him to ride.

The taunting tone of his guardian spurred the young man to an eager

investigation of the best means of escape.

Just because you can sit on a horse doesn't mean you can ride him.

But within a short time, necessity had made a proficient horseman of him.

In the days that followed his arrival, he grew quickly to an acceptance of his

situation, and then to a delight in the freedom that he discovered beyond the

boundaries of the manor.

Come on!

Mile upon primeval mile of harsh,

stubbled emptiness,

Strange heather scents, wandering watercourses.

Fragile splinters of birdsong lodged sharply in the great cavity of silence.

The landscape began to beckon him as a friend.

There was no fear to be found in it. No threat.

No thought of any danger.

And foolishly, little caution.

At first, the arrival of the girl made no sense to him.

He'd been lying there for so long, drifting in and out of consciousness,

growing steadily weaker and colder.

Don't move.

For a brief moment, the darkness cleared from his mind. There was uncertainty

about this new vision, whether it was real or imagined.

Finally, the return of the veil, slowly falling.

draping itself across his mind until he could resist it no longer.

At the manor, the boy had been not exactly missed,

but his absence had been noticed.

The girl, unable to lift him, had remained with him, her desperation

deepening, her attempts to keep him warm increasingly futile.

Now, as the search party drew closer, she left unnoticed, slipping into the

folds of darkness.

You all right, boy?

You all right?

Here, boy.

Have a pinch of snuff. It'll do you good.

Mercifully, the doctor from the village had remedies more powerful even than

snuff, and soon the boy's cuts and sprains and bruises were healing.

In his mind, though, there lingered a half-remembered image of the young woman

who had come to his aid.

Dinner at the Manor was an occasion of enormous appetite, but little taste.

Down at the market, my dear.

You didn't go by yourself.

Oh, I was quite alone.

I don't believe you. Oh, I was by myself, my love. I seen you looking at

that little dairymaid. Oh, that wasn't me, it was somebody else, my dear.

Here, do you like this chicken?

Oh, tis a lovely bird.

I rang a snack this morning myself.

I taste all the sweeter, my love.

I thought you'd like it.

Where'd you get this wine?

Oh, the usual supplier, my dear.

That's not your usual wine.

I got a special... At this table, braver men than he had been known to hesitate

before striking a note of serious conversation.

Sadly, naivety of youth did not allow for such caution.

Excuse me, sir.

Excuse me, sir.

I just happen to wonder if you know of the young maid over at Sherburton.

I don't know. You're no young maid.

She's fair, a slip of the thing.

And you're no maid at Sherburton at all.

After my fall, one such approached me.

Oh!

Don't approach me!

You don't waste a matter of time doing it!

Alternately ignored and repudiated, the boy sought refuge in his own silence.

as soon as he was recovered from his injuries he returned to his horse and to

the welcome solitude of the moors

gradually his need to

find the girl he had glimpsed in those moments of pain became an obsession

time and time again he retraced his route

out across the wilderness towards the spot near laughter tour

where he'd had his fall.

As the days drifted by, his hopes of ever seeing her again faded, until

finally he began to believe that she had never existed at all.

It was on that very morning, as he stood at the edge of abandoning the memory

forever, it was on that morning that he found her.

She moved slowly, a slight solitary figure absorbed in the work of gathering

firewood.

She seemed weary, her clothes ragged and bruised.

Still an image of curious frailty, but apparently real nevertheless.

The young man was glad of that.

Glad to know that his senses had not cheated him, after all.

Hello there.

Lovely day.

At first there seemed little response. No immediate recognition in her eyes.

as if their last encounter had never taken place, or at least, as if she were

reluctant to admit it.

You come round here.

There, beside the river, he voiced the questions he'd wanted to ask.

A name.

Where she came from.

Why it was that she'd proved so elusive.

But... There was not a single answer.

All she asked of him was that he forget her.

Totally. And that he tell no one of having seen her.

I can answer any of that.

Why not?

Now that he was here... Close to this girl, she seemed more elusive than ever,

as if there were a great distance still to be crossed before he might actually

reach her.

Abruptly, she completed her task and walked away.

Guiltily, he permitted his curiosity to draw him across the hills in the

direction she had taken.

Then he spotted her by the river near a farmhouse.

almost hidden in the trees.

From the hill, the boy felt rather than saw the fear that the voice had

instilled in the girl.

But what happened next shocked and angered him.

Good morning, girl.

I've been as quick as I can, Father.

Don't you answer me back now, girl.

It's the water.

It's the water.

It's low.

No,

please.

The boy had escaped with his life, but his self-esteem lay in shreds about him.

He was tormented by terrible remorse for the cowardice of his retreat.

What had become of her as he rushed to save his own skin?

Who was the man who'd attacked her in such bestial fashion?

And what was to be done now?

The following day, not long past dawn, he found her again near the very place

of their previous meeting.

In a matter-of-fact way, the girl explained that it was her father who had

shot at him.

She warned the boy against ever returning to the farm.

Next time, he would surely be killed.

Now she was willing, almost eager, to answer the questions he put to her, as

if suddenly there existed between them a bond forged in the danger they'd shared.

Their conversation seemed to provide a release that she had long waited for.

Like him.

She regarded the vast open moor as a sanctuary, a place in which to seek

solace and freedom.

For

the

first time, the boy heard the sound of her laughter.

Piece by piece, as they sat together, her story unfolded.

Her mother, dead some two years past now, worn out by the toil of their hard

existence on the moor. Her father, crushed by the weight of loss.

A sick man now.

He feared that somehow his daughter would be taken from him too.

He insisted that she must be protected, sheltered, kept out of sight for her own

safety.

His protection was so fierce, it could no longer be distinguished from cruelty.

I can't.

In spite of that, she could not bring herself to leave him.

The girl had sworn to her mother on her deathbed that she would always remain at

the farm and look after her father.

That vow could not be broken now.

Nothing on earth could release her from it.

She kept the gift and in the weeks ahead it became an important symbol of their

friendship The

boy rode each day to the valley where she lived

but never dared to venture into it

From the trees beside the house, the girl would signal with the handkerchief

when it was safe for her to slip away.

Later, they would meet in their usual place beside the river.

Slowly the summer began to burn down to autumn.

The long moments in the sun becoming fewer against the shortening of the

days.

The young man had quite forgotten that he'd once been an unwilling traveler to

this weather-beaten country.

He felt now that he belonged here, that he had a place alongside its creatures

and its wildness.

He could hardly conceive of returning to his life in the city.

Still less could he bring himself to think that the girl would then remain

locked into a life of loveless misery.

He tried again and again to persuade her to go away with him, but she was

adamant. She would not leave.

Then, after a let from home, he knew that he had to tell her that it was

almost time for him to go, with or without her.

The wild pony drift, the great annual ritual of the moor, chasing the animals

from the hills, herding them together, counting, claiming ownership.

It was a spectacle the boy might well have enjoyed, but for a growing sense of

unease. Several days had passed since his last meeting with the girl.

He'd waited patiently.

But there'd been no waving from the trees.

Now, as he watched the roundup, he felt a sense of foreboding deep inside.

And, well, he might.

I'm gonna teach you a lesson you're not gonna forget!

Just you wait, let me get my hands on you, girl! Get away! Get away!

I'm doing nothing, look!

My dog girl, I'm gonna get you on this and you're not gonna forget!

I want you down under that table!

Girl? Come on, girl. Speak to me, girl.

Girl?

He's gone.

He's gone.

When two more days had passed without a signal, the boy could wait no longer.

The following morning, a carriage was to take him back to London.

He decided that whatever the danger, he must now go to the house in the valley

in search of the girl.

As he approached the river, he saw a figure ahead of him.

It was her father, silent, sitting quite alone.

For a moment, the terror of their first encounter filled the boy's mind.

But this time, there was no fire in the man, no fury, no glimmer of recognition

even. He seemed empty, lost.

Alarmed, the boy spurred his horse, heading for the farm.

There was nothing.

No sign of the girl except Except for the handkerchief he had given her

Why had she left it behind?

Why had she left him behind?

He was convinced that her father was lying he probably locked her in the

house His only fear now was for the safety of the girl

She wasn't there.

Her things were there.

But she had gone.

Hello?

Bewildered, he returned to the river, determined this time to make sense of

what her father said.

But he too had vanished.

Aimlessly he rode up and down stream looking for him.

Her father lay face down in the water.

He was dead.

Must have stumbled.

A deep gash had split his head.

servants from the manor helped him bury the old man in the grounds of the farm.

But was he never to see the girl again?

She had disappeared from the moor as completely as if she had never been.

His early doubts of her existence crowded back.

Was it all a dream?

The day he was to leave for home, the boy returned to the trees in the valley

for the last time.

It was a despondent pilgrimage.

With him, he took the only remnant of their friendship, the handkerchief he

had offered to stem her tears.

Had he, in fact, never given it to her?

He left it there, in the branches,

in the place where he felt it belonged.

Then, as he turned for a last look back...

The white bird climbed higher and higher above the trees, then out across the

moor, her soul flying free.

Now he knew this time she was leaving.

She circled and flew towards him.

As she passed high above him, he thought he heard her laughter, and his sadness

was overwhelmed by joy.

His joy for her freedom.