Without further delay half the party spread out toward the wood which formed one side of the moor, while the other half spread back toward the town; and as soon as all were in place the doctor, who was in the centre, with Rounds the miller on his right, and the rector on his left, gave the word. The churchwarden shouted and waved his hat and with the soft grey dawn gradually growing brighter, and a speck or two of orange appearing high up in the east, the line went slowly onward towards Lenby, pausing from time to time for pools to be examined and for the more luckless of the party to struggle out of awkward places.
The rector’s three pupils were on the right—the end nearest the town, Distin being the last in the line and in spite of Macey’s anticipations, he struggled on as well as the best man there.
Patches of mist like fleecy clouds, fallen during the night, lay here and there; and every now and then one who looked along the line could see companions walk right into these fogs and disappear for minutes at a time to suddenly step out again on to land that was quite clear.
Hardly a word was spoken, the toil was sufficient to keep every one silent. For five minutes after a start had been made every one was drenched with dew to the waist, and as Macey afterwards said if they had forded the river they could not have been more wet.
Every now and then birds were startled by someone, to rise with a loud whirr if they were partridges, with a rapid beating of pinions and frightened quacking if wild-fowl; and for a few moments, more than once, both Macey and Gilmore forgot the serious nature of their mission in interest in the various objects they encountered.
For these were not few.
Before they had gone a quarter of a mile there was a leap and a rush, and unable to contain himself, Bruff, who was next on Macey’s left suddenly shouted “loo—loo—loo—loo.”
“See him, Mester Macey!” he cried. “Oh, if we’d had a greyhound.”
But they had no long-legged hound to dart off after the longer-eared animal; and the hare started from its form in some dry tussock grass, went off with its soft fur streaked to its sides with the heavy dew, and was soon out of reach.
Then a great grey flapped-wing heron rose from a tiny mere and sailed heavily away.