CHAPTER XXVII
Christian realized blankly, all at once, as’ he stood and gazed out over the moor, that he did not know his way.
The spring had laid upon this great rolling common a beauty of its own. Everywhere, on thorns and furze and briars, the touch of the new life had hung emeralds to bedeck and hide the dun waste of winter. The ashen-gray carpets of old mosses were veined with the vivid green of young growths; out from the dry brown litter of lifeless ferns and bracken were rising the malachite croziers of fresh fronds. The brilliant yellow of broom and gorse blooms caught the eye in all directions, blazing above the vernal outburst of another year’s vegetation, and the hum of the bees in the sunlight, and the delicately mingled odors in the May air were a delight to the senses. But under this exuberance of re-awakened nature, welcome though it might be, somehow the landmarks of last autumn seemed to have disappeared.
The path which had led along the wall, for example, was now nowhere discernible. Or had there really been a path at any time?
It was clear enough, at all events, that his course for some distance lay beside this massive line of ancient masonry, even if no track was marked for him. At some farther point it would be necessary to turn off at a right angle toward the Mere Copse—and here he could recall distinctly that there had been a path. But then he came upon several paths, or vaguely defined grassy depressions which might be paths, and the divergent ways of these were a trouble to him. At last, he decided to strike out more boldly into the heath, independently of paths, and try to get a general view of the landscape. He made his way through creepers and prickly little bushes toward an elevation in the distance, realizing more and more in his encumbered progress that his quest was like that of one who should search the limitless sea for a small boat. There seemed no boundaries whatever to this vast tract of waste land.
As he began at length the ascent of the mound toward which his course had been directed, he scanned the moor near and far, but no human figure was visible. No signs could he discover of any beaten track across it; of the several patches of woodland beyond, in the distance to the left, he could not even be sure which was the Mere Copse. Below, on the edge of the sky-line at the right, he could see the tops of the towers and chimneys of Caermere. Wheeling round from this point, then, he endeavored to identify that portion of the hill, on the opposite side of the river-chasm, which Kathleen had pointed out to him from the terrace. But, viewed from here, there were so many hills! The hopelessness of his errand became more apparent with each glance round. Despondently, he sauntered up the few remaining yards to the top.
He stood upon the ridge of a grass-grown wall of stones and earth, which in a somewhat irregular circle enclosed perhaps a quarter-acre of land. This wall on its best preserved side, where he found himself, was some dozen feet in height. Across the ring it seemed lower, and at three or four points was broken down altogether. He realized that he was surveying a very ancient structure—no doubt, prehistoric. Would it have been a fortress or a temple, or the primitive mausoleum of some chieftain-ruler in these wilds? One of the openings seemed to suggest by its symmetry an entrance to the enclosure. It was all very curious, and he promised himself that very soon he would examine it in detail. Some vague promptings of a nascent archaeological spirit impelled him now, upon second thoughts, to walk round on the crest of the wall to the other side.
Suddenly he stopped, stared sharply downward with arrested breath, and then, while his face wreathed itself with amused smiles, tip-toed along a few paces farther. Halting here, his eyes dancing with suppressed gaiety, he regarded at his leisure the object of his expedition.
Upon the sunny outer side of the sloping embankment, only a few feet below, was seated Frances Bailey. Her face was turned from him, and she was apparently engrossed in the study of a linen-backed sectional map spread on her knees. A small red book lay in the grass at her side, and he was so close that he could decipher the legend “Shropshire and Cheshire” on its cover.