Rounds the miller was one of the foremost, and carried the biggest lantern, and made the most noise. Chakes the sexton, was there, too, with his lantern—a dim, yellow-looking affair, whose sides were of horn sheets, with here and there fancy devices punched in the tin to supply air to the burning candle within.
Crumps, from the dairy, Graders the baker, and John Wrench the carpenter, all were there, and it seemed a wonder to Macey where all the lanterns had come from. But it was no wonder, for Greythorpe was an ill-lit place, where candles and oil-lamps took the place of gas even in the little shops, and there were plenty of people who needed the use of a stable-light.
There were two policemen stationed in Greythorpe, but they were off on their nightly rounds, and it was not until the weird little procession of light-bearers had gone half a mile from the town that there was a challenge from under a dark hedge, and two figures stepped out into the road.
“Eh? Master Vane Lee lost?” said one of the figures, the lights proclaiming them to be the policemen, who had just met at one of their appointed stations; “then we’d better jyne you.”
This added two more lanterns to the bearers of light, but for a long time they were not opened, but kept as a reserved force—ready if wanted.
At last, in almost utter silence, the moor was reached, the men were spread out, and the search began. But it was ended after an hour’s struggling among the bushes, and an extrication of Chakes, and Wrench the carpenter, from deep bog holes into which they had suddenly stepped, and, on being drawn out, sent home.
Then Rounds spoke out in his loud, bluff way.
“Can’t be done, doctor, by this light. It’s risking the lives of good men and true. I want to find young Mester, and I’ll try as if he was a son of my own, but we can’t draw this mash to-night.”
There was a dead silence at this, and then the rector spoke out.
“I’m afraid he is right, Lee. I would gladly do everything possible, but this place really seems impassable by night.”