“You go to Hurst Lea Woods,” nodded Mrs. Trimwell emphatically once more.
“We will,” agreed David briefly.
A moment later they were on their way.
Taking their route first through the village, they presently turned sharply to the right, past a smith’s forge, where a big cart horse was being newly shod, and down a lane. Here, again to the right, they came upon a stile set in a blackberry hedge. Surmounting it, they found themselves in a meadow, while facing them, blue and hazy in the distance lay Hurst Lea Woods. So far, at least, their course was clear.
A quarter of an hour’s walking brought them to the river, and the woods on its opposite bank. To the left lay the moorland which it skirted; to the right lay meadows through which it flowed; and, some mile or so distant, the high road between Malford and Whortley. Here the river passed beneath a stone bridge, again seeking the meadows, through which it made a great bend southwards. Bending again to the left along its meadow route, it finally, with another southward bend, emptied itself into the sea, at a small village some five miles to the east of Malford.
Here, below the woods, it ran amber-coloured and shallow, brown stones cropping up above its surface. Rushes and ferns bordered it; ragged-robin grew in great pink patches in the meadows lying along its southern bank. On its northern bank were the woods stretching upwards, dark, shadowed, mysterious.
Elizabeth and David came to a simultaneous halt, and looked around.
“Apparently,” remarked Elizabeth, “they are not here.”
The remark seemed somewhat over-obvious.
David went across the short grass to the very margin of the river, and looked right and left.