Near the gate was some clay, and Reginald showed her several prints of small feet.
“Look,” said he, “here's the track of two—one's a gal; how I know, here's a sole to this shoe no wider nor a knife. Come on.”
In the next field he was baffled for a long time; but at last he found a place in a dead hedge where they had gone through.
“See,” said he, “these twigs are fresh broken, and here's a bit of the gal's frock. Oh! won't she catch it?”:
“Oh, you brave, clever boy!” cried Lady Bassett.
“Come on!” shouted the urchin.
He hunted like a beagle, and saw like a bird, with his savage, glittering eye. He was on fire with the ardor of the chase; and, not to dwell too long on what has been so often and so well written by others, in about an hour and a half he brought the anxious, palpitating, but now hopeful mother, to the neighborhood of Bassett's wood. Here he trusted to his own instinct. “They have gone into the wood,” said he, “and I don't blame 'em. I found my way here long before his age. I say, don't you tell; I've snared plenty of the governor's hares in that wood.”
He got to the edge of the wood and ran down the side. At last he found the marks of small feet on a low bank, and, darting over it, discovered the fainter traces on some decaying leaves inside the wood.
“There,” said he; “now it is just as if you had got them in your pocket, for they'll never find their way out of this wood. Bless your heart, why I used to get lost in it at first.”
“Lost in the wood!” cried Lady Bassett; “but he will die of fear, or be eaten by wild beasts; and it is getting so dark.”