They descended in all
directions down the hill, and straightway several of the parties
fell into the snare set by nature for all misguided midnight
ramblers over the lower cretaceous formation. The "lynchets," or
flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen
yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and, losing their
footing on the rubbly steep, they slid sharply downward, the lanterns
rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their
sides till the horn was scorched through.
When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as
the man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them
round these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather
to dazzle their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in
the exploration, were extinguished, due silence was observed, and
in this more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was
a grassy, briery, moist channel, affording some shelter to any
person who had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and
ascended on the other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an
interval closed together again to report progress. At the second
time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely oak, the single
tree on this part of the upland, probably sown there by a passing
bird some hundred years before; and here, standing a little to one
side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself, appeared the
man they were in quest of, his outline being well defined against
the sky beyond.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149