“Were you them that sang out?” asked one of them.
“Only in answer to your hail; we be no cravens, but always ready to help poor wanderers,” replied the talkative old man.
“We did not sound a note before we heard a hail,” said the questioner in the new party. “We have not strayed yet, being bound for the preaching.”
“Have you been on the horse road?” asked Hartwell.
“The horse road? Why, sir, the horse road lies down the way that you came,” said the other.
“Surely not, my friend. How could we have missed it?” said Hartwell.
“If 'twasn't for the fog I could walk as steady for it as a mule,” said the old man. “Ay, friends, us any mule under a pack saddle, for I have traversed valley and cleft an hundred times in the old days, being well known as a wild youth, asking your pardon for talking so secular when a parson is by. I am loath to boast, but there was never a wilder youth in three parishes, Captain Hartwell.”
(Mr. Hartwell had once been the captain of a mine.)
“Surely we should be guided by the sound of the sea,” said Wesley. “A brief while ago I heard the boom of waters into one of the caves. If we listen closely we should learn if the sound is more distinct and thereby gather if we are approaching that part of the cliff or receding from it.”
“Book-learning is a great help at times, but 'tis a snare in a streaming fog, or in such times of snow as we were wont to have in the hard years before the Queen died in her gorgeous palace,” remarked the patriarch.