'Oh, Mr. Herring, what is to be done? What can I do to put myself right?'
'I see one course open to you. You come with me and the constable and watch the process of salting, and help us to secure young Sampson Tramplara, or whoever does it. You will give evidence against those who are acting fraudulently. You will assist me in exposing the rascality. It will not then be possible for your good name to suffer, though your pocket may and probably will be lighter.'
'Thank you, thank you so much, Mr. Herring,' said the unfortunate man; 'I shall never be able to repay what you are doing for me save by my prayers. I accept your proposal. How is it to be carried out?'
'You must go after your friends, and make some excuse for deserting them. Then return to me, and I will take you with me. I must start the constable, who is going to the same spot by another route. Stay! you have a brown speckled shawl over your arm.'
'It belongs to a lady of my party.'
'Take it with you. Your black suit might be visible, but enveloped in the shawl you will be unobserved amidst the heather.'
The moor was clear. No one was visible on the flank of Cosdon or on the hill-side opposite, as Herring and his companion stole cautiously under cover to a place which commanded the sluice. Herring placed the pastor at some distance from himself; he wished the constable to be with him, so that they might make a rush together on the man they desired to take.
The constable had made a considerable detour; he had, in fact, worked round the hill from an opposite direction. Herring was on the look-out for him, and signed to him with a handkerchief fluttered behind a rock where to rejoin him.
The day was bright, but a cool wind blew from the north-west, rolling scattered masses of white cloud, like giant icebergs floating in a polar sea. Autumn was closing in. The days were shortening, the fern becoming russet, the heath had lost its bells; only a few sprigs of heather retained their harsh, dry blossoms. The gorse no longer bloomed throughout, though here and there one little gold flower still showed. 'When the furze is out of bloom, then sweet love is out of tune,' says a Devonshire proverb, which acquires its force from the fact that the gorse is in flower throughout the year. The whortleberry leaves were turned orange and crimson. Out of the peat the coral moss showed its scarlet incrustations.
'To my thinking,' said the constable, who found silence irksome, 'the worts' (whortleberries) 'of the wood ain't to compare with the worts of the moor. The wood worts is the bigger, but the moor worts is the sweeter. Do you like wort-pie with clotted cream on it as thick as the pastry?'