The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Part 40

"Which way do we go?" asked Cottle presently.

"I suppose up by the stream. It's bound to lead up to the bog."

The stream in question was a torrent which fell in a series of leaps through a narrow gorge in the rocks.

Fisher minor looked very blue.

"I wish I'd got my strong boots," said he.

The dismal tone in which he uttered the words startled the others.

"I say, young Fisher," said D'Arcy, "you're not done yet, are you!"

Fisher minor had not the pluck to say "Yes."

"I'll be game after this rest. I got a little blown up that last bit, that's all."

"It doesn't look awfully far now," said Ashby.

"It's further than it looks. Come on; let's be jogging," said Wally.

The new ascent, which consisted chiefly in clambering from stone to stone up the rocky ravine, was less exhausting than the tramp up the bog, and as Wally was no better at this sort of climbing than any of the rest, he did not dishearten them by getting hopelessly ahead, but kept with the party. Occasionally they had to help one another up a specially stiff ledge, and this mutual accommodation was an additional source of comfort to the weak goers. Progress was very slow. Cash, having hauled himself up on to a little platform of moss, looked at his watch and was alarmed to find it was past one. The huge ravine, at the far head of which they could see the open sky, seemed a tremendous distance yet. And after that, according to Wally, was to come the bog and the cliffs beyond, on which Wisdom lost his life.

Yet none of these things was quite so bad as the rolling up of some fleecy clouds behind them, which effaced the view below, and seemed to be crawling up the mountain in pursuit of them.

Cash pointed this out to Wally, who grunted.

"We shall miss the view from the top," said he.

"If we ever get there," said Cash.

On they scrambled again, casting every now and then a longing look upward at the grim ravine head, and now and then an anxious glance behind at the fast overhauling clouds.

"We're bound to get out of it up there," sang out Wally.

But almost as he spoke the light mist swept past him, blotting out everything but the boulder he stood on and a rift of the dashing water at his feet.

The clouds had befriended Fisher minor. They did what he durst not do; ordered the party to halt.

"Where are you?" shouted Wally from the invisible. "Here; where are you?"

"Stay there; and I'll come to you."

Slowly the party foregathered, and stood huddled in the blinding mist on a flat rock.

"It's blowing over," said Wally. "We'd better make back for the hill- side, and get out of this ravine till it clears up."

It was no easy task scrambling back, down that difficult way, over boulders already made slippery by the moist mist, and not able to see four yards ahead. The clouds poured up to meet them in column upon column, growing denser and wetter every minute. At last, how they scarcely knew, they came down to where the rush of the water ceased and the stones gave place to wet gra.s.s.

"We must be somewhere near where we sat down last," said Ashby. "Whew!

it's cold."

"The thing is," said Percy, "aren't we too much out to the left?

There's no sign of a path that I can see."

"This looks like one," said a voice ahead, which they recognised as Wally's. "Come along--this way."

They followed as well as they could, and groped about for the path.

Then they shouted.

Wally replied out of the mist.

"Stay there a bit--it's not a path. I'll yell when I've got it."

They waited, and for five minutes listened anxiously for the signal.

Then they thought they heard it away to the right, and floundered off in pursuit. But after a little they discovered that they were going uphill.

"Hadn't we better go back to where we were," said Cash, "or we may miss him?"

It occurred to most of the party that they had missed him already.

Still, they decided to go back.

Presently they distinctly heard what sounded like a voice below them.

"That must be he. Yell!"

They shouted, and again there seemed to come a faint response.

"All right," said Percy. "Stay where you are, and I'll go and fetch him up."

And he vanished into the mist.

"What's the time?" said Ashby, as the party stood dismally waiting.

"Half-past four. It's a good job it doesn't get dark till six."

"Only an hour and a half," said Cottle; "I wish those chaps would come."

But though they strained their ears and eyes, no sign of the missing ones came; nothing but the swish of the rain and the whistle of the wind through the gra.s.s.

"We'd better go on," said D'Arcy presently; "they'll probably get down some other way. Look sharp, or it will be dark."

So they started at a fast walk down the boggy slope.

"Keep close," said D'Arcy after a time. "Are you all there?"

Everybody answered for himself, but not for his neighbour.

"You there, young Fisher minor?"