"His terror was now at its highest; indeed he could never remember what he did next, or when he turned to go down the valley; but turn he did, after having run back many paces.
"His steps, however, were guided by One whose eye was never off him, even his kind and heavenly Father; and on he went, neither heeding stones nor briars; every step taking him nearer to the mouth of the glen, and the entrance on the great high road.
"And who had been driving along that road in a fine carriage with four horses?"
"Who?" cried Henry Fairchild, turning over another leaf; "who, but his own papa?—but I must go on."
"Mr. and Mrs. Lawley had given up all hopes of finding their little boy near Norwood, and they had set
out in their coach to go all over the country in search of him. They had come the day before to a town near to the place where the gipsies had kept Edwy all the winter, and there they had made many inquiries, particularly about any gipsies who might be in the habit of haunting that country: but people there were afraid of the gipsies, and did not like to say anything which might bring them into trouble with them. The gipsies never did much mischief in the way of stealing near their own huts, and were always civil when civilly treated.
"The poor father and mother, therefore, could get no information there; and the next morning they had come on across the country, and along the road into which the gipsies' valley opened.
"Wherever these unhappy parents saw a wild country, full of woods, and where the ground was rough and broken, they thought, if possible, more than ever of their lost child; and at those times Mrs. Lawley always began to weep—indeed, she had done little else since she had missed her boy. The travellers first came in sight of the gipsies' valley, and the vast sweep of woods on each side of it, just as the horses had dragged the coach to the top of a very high hill or bank over which the road went; and then also those in the coach saw before them a very steep descent, so steep that it was thought right to put the drag upon the wheels.