She fell on her knees and thanked God for her boy.
In the middle of this wood was a shallow excavation, an old chalk-pit, unused for many years. It was never deep, and had been half filled up with dead leaves; these, once blown into the hollow, or dropped from the trees, had accumulated.
The very middle of the line struck on this place, and Moss, the old keeper, who was near the center, had no sooner cast his eyes into it than he halted, and uttered a stentorian halloo well known to sportsmen—“SEE HO!”
A dead halt, a low murmur, and in a very few seconds the line was a circle, and all the torches that had not expired held high in a flaming ring over the prettiest little sight that wood had ever presented.
The old keeper had not given tongue on conjecture, like some youthful hound. In a little hollow of leaves, which the boy had scraped out, lay Master Compton and Miss Ruperta, on their little backs, each with an arm round the other's neck, enjoying the sweet sound sleep of infancy, which neither the horror of their situation—babes in the wood—nor the shouts of fifty people had in the smallest degree disturbed; to be sure, they had undergone great fatigue.
Young master wore a coronet of bluebells on his golden bead, young miss a wreath of cowslips on her ebon locks. The pair were flowers, cherubs, children—everything that stands for young, tender, and lovely.
The honest villagers gaped, and roared in chorus, and held high their torches, and gazed with reverential delight. Not for them was it to finger the little gentlefolks, but only to devour them with admiring eyes.
Indeed, the picture was carried home to many a humble hearth, and is spoken of to this day in Huntercombe village.
But the pale and anxious fathers were in no state to see pictures—they only saw their children Sir Charles and Richard Bassett came round with the general rush, saw, and dashed into the pit.
Strange to say, neither knew the other was there. Each seized his child, and tore it away from the contact of the other child, as if from a viper; in which natural but harsh act they saw each other for the first time, and their eyes gleamed in a moment with hate and defiance over their loving children.