“One at a time, grandfather,” said a man who had arrived with the last party. “There's not space enough for you and the ocean on a morn like this. Hark to the sea.”
They stood together listening, but now, through one of the mysteries of a fog, not a sound from the sea reached them. They might have been miles inland.
“I have been baffled by a fog before now,” said a shepherd. “Have followed the bleat of an ewe for a mile over the hills, and lo, the silly beast had never left her lamb, and when I was just over her she sounded the faintest.”
“Time is passing; should we not make a move in some direction?” said Wesley. “Surely, my friends, we must shortly come upon some landmark that will tell us our position in a moment.”
“I cannot believe that in trying to cut off the mile for the Gap I went grossly astray,” said Mr. Hartwell. “I am for marching straight on.”
“Straight on we march and leave the guidance to Heaven,” said Wesley.
On they went, Wesley marvelling how it was that men who should have known every inch of the way blindfold, having been on it almost daily all their lives, could be so baffled by a mist. To be sure Mr. Hartwell had forsaken the track at one place, but was it likely that he had got upon a different one when he had made his detour to cut off a mile of their journey.
On they walked, however, their party numbering fourteen men, and then all of a sudden the voice of the sea came upon them, and at the same moment they almost stepped over the steep brink of a little chasm.
“What is this?” cried Hartwell. “As I live'tis Gosney hollow, and we are scarcely half a mile from my house! We have walked a good mile back on our steps.”
“Did not I tell you how I followed the ewe?” said the shepherd. “'Tis for all the world the same tale. Sore baffling thing is a sea-mist.”