“Here, miss, take care! This way.”
And, taking a corner of my cloak, he led me round into a path which branched off to the left.
“But you are going wrong,” I said. “It is straight on, I know—not up here. This is the way to Dunning’s Farm, half a mile off.”
“It’s all right, miss,” said he. “I’m afraid of our being run over along the high-road now we’re so near the village. Come on, miss; it’s all right.”
He was very impatient; and I followed him, not without some misgivings. We had groped our way up this lane for what seemed to me a very long time, when the boy stopped and whistled.
“What are you doing that for?” said I sharply.
But the boy, who, by making but a few steps forward, was lost to my sight in the fog, whistled again. I stood for a moment trembling with terror. Then the boy exclaimed angrily—
“Why, he ain’t here!”
“He! Who?” I cried, in alarm; and at that moment I heard a crackling of branches, and saw dimly through the fog, a few yards in front of me, the figure of a man crashing through the hedge, and leaping down from the field into the road.
Smothering a cry, I turned, and ran I knew not whither. It was Tom Parkes or Gordon, who had decoyed me out here to punish me for my discoveries, which Sarah must have told them about.