But she did not omit to take a liberal share of more solid food as well. And oh! how good it all tasted—the tea, the bread and butter, the saffron cake, all had a flavour such as they never had elsewhere, and the air was growing fresh enough to make the hot tea very acceptable and comfortable.
They did not sit long after they had done, for it really was beginning to grow chilly.
"Now you had all better go and have a game of some kind or other," said
Kitty, "and I will pack the baskets ready to go into the cart, and then
I'll come and play too."
It took her longer, though, than she had counted on to pack all the things so that they would travel safely, and she had put them in and taken them out again so many times that when at last she had done, and glanced up with a sigh of relief to look for the others, she saw with dismay that the short winter's day was well-nigh over. The sun had disappeared quite suddenly, leaving behind it a leaden, lowering sky, while in the distance hung a thick mist, which told of heavy rain not far off.
"I will call the others. I think we had better be starting soon; the weather has changed," she murmured, and, springing to her feet, she shouted, and shouted, and shouted again. No answer came.
Still calling, she went around the tors to another point, but she could catch no glimpse of any living being, and in that great waste of rocks and furze and underbrush it was not surprising. Kitty, though, was surprised and a little bit alarmed, and she ran from point to point, calling and calling again; but for a long time the only answer was the long sighs the wind gave as it rushed over the level land, and lost itself with a little wail of anger amongst the old tors. Then at last came a long shout, and Dan appeared, and almost at the same moment a drop fell smartly on Kitty's cheek, then another and another, and suddenly a heavy downpour descended on them.
"I saw it coming," gasped Dan. "Look!" and Kitty looked across the land stretching below, and saw rain in a dense column rushing towards them, driven by a squall which dashed it into them pitilessly.
In little more than a moment the whole place had changed from a sunny, idyllic little paradise to a bleak, howling wilderness, lonely, weird, exposed to all the worst storms of heaven.
"Where are the others?" gasped Kitty, seizing some of the packages to run with them to the cart.
"I told them not to climb up here again, but to start for home and we would overtake them as quickly as we could. It wasn't raining then, or I'd have told them to run to the little shanty; but I should think they'd have the sense to do that," said Dan.