"Indeed, you're not; you've heaps of pluck. But don't you think we ought to go on now? I'm ready."
"Very well. How dark it's getting. I do hope there'll be a moon to-night. But no I remember it was new moon only a few days ago, so if it does rise it won't give much light."
"Never mind. I daresay we shall find our way home somehow. If only we could manage to get into the main road. I suppose if we were real explorers we should not mind being lost. Oh, what's that?"
Both boys started in sudden fright as a dark object rushed past them in the dim light. It was only a pony, however, and in spite of their anxious position, they laughed the next moment at the shock the harmless creature had given them.
"Do you remember what John Bawdon told us about the Dartmoor fogs?" Theodore questioned presently, as they slowly descended the hill, proceeding more carefully now.
"Yes; but I don't think this blue mist is a fog. Do you?"
"I don't know; perhaps not. I wonder if they're back from Dartmeet yet? If so, don't you think father will come to look for us?" Theodore suggested in a more hopeful tone.
"But he won't know where we are," Jack responded with a deep-drawn sigh; "we did not tell anyone where we were going. He would never think of looking for us so far away from home."
Theodore's only answer to this reasoning was a burst of tears. Jack, greatly surprised and dismayed, tried in vain to comfort him. He had seen Theodore cry many times from different causes, such as disappointment or anger, but only on one occasion—that on which his stepbrother had been proved instrumental in setting the hay-rick on fire—had he heard him weep in such a heart-broken way as this. The truth was, Theodore's conscience was pricking him sorely, and telling him how wrongly he had acted in overcoming Jack's scruples, and insisting on this expedition without the knowledge of those set in authority over him.
His tears were not caused by fear, although he was naturally very frightened at the prospect of a night on the moor, but rather by remorse at the thought of his conduct. He determined that if they were so fortunate as to reach home in safety, he would take all the blame on his own shoulders. What would his stepmother say if any harm came to her son? Did she not look to him who was so much the stronger, to protect and care for the weaker boy?