Whimple flushed round, the tears sprung to his eyes.
“Oh!” he cried, “do you think I don’t know it? Do you think I haven’t suffered to tell you all? You would have learnt long ago, but that the confidence is not mine to give while she lives.”
“Well, well,” said his master; “go to the front again, my good fellow, and lead.”
The wind whipped the slopes, planing the fallen snow from them in ringlets like wood-shavings. Now and again a lashed clump of trees would seem to swerve at them through the blinding flakes, or the thud of tumbling chalk, sprung by the frost in some neighbouring quarry, would sound startlingly in their ears. These were the only scattered phrases on an else blank page, and the desolation made them expressive as words of comfort.
By and by Tuke moved forward to his companions.
“The snow thickens,” he cried. “I shall be easier when our faces are turned westwards.”
He shouted to Dennis: “You are not wandering afield? You are sure of your way?” And: “Quite,” the man answered. “We are nigh upon the place now, sir.”
It seemed full time, if any prospect remained to them of getting back to lunch and to the invited guests. Blythewood groaned at the very thought of being late.
“I have sinned enough already,” said he. “Angel will be ready to bite me.”
They had fought and struggled by long miles of swale and hillock, and were become mere remote atoms in the midst of a blinding wilderness, when they broke upon a little gaunt oasis—a dismal copse of good intent—stretching withered arms of welcome to them from out the whirl. This forlorn touch of nature was set at the foot of a shallow mound or tumulus that now, caked with white, looked like a huge inverted pudding-basin; and amongst the spare trunks Dennis stopped and turned a grey face to his gentlemen.