The woman hesitated and looked from Colonel George to Lady Eleanor, who said: "Colonel Fitzdenys is right. You can trust him, and you will show him the way; and I must come too in case I can be of use. Remember that you saved my children for me."
The woman still shook her head, but she was evidently wavering. Colonel George's tone of quiet authority at last prevailed with her, and she consented to show them the way, saying gruffly that she would always prefer a soldier, who knew what he was about, to a doctor. But she refused to ride a pony which Lady Eleanor offered to her, and insisted on starting off by herself, appointing a place in a valley by the edge of the moor where she promised to meet them without fail. And with that she strode away across the park, while Lady Eleanor ordered her horse and ran to put on her habit.
The horses were soon ready, and Colonel George and Lady Eleanor started off; but it was only by a long circuit that they could ride to the appointed spot on horseback, and when they reached it the woman was already there before them. She then led them by a very rough path, which was unknown to Colonel George, to the very head of a deep combe, where the oak coppice grew thinner and thinner until at last it died out in the open moor. Among these thin trees was a rough Exmoor pony, hobbled, which the woman caught and mounted, and then led the way straight on over the hill.
"I don't understand this," said Colonel George to Lady Eleanor, "I have always been told that the ground before us was impassable. It is the bog in which most of the rivers in the moor rise. I have crossed it a mile east and west of this after deer, and the ground is bad enough there; but I had no idea that it could be crossed here."
"No," said the woman, who had evidently overheard him, "the deer don't never cross here, but I know my way across well enough."
These were the only words that she spoke during the ride, except now and again to bid her companions keep to right or left, for presently they were on the treacherous ground across which she had guided the children, and the horses sank deeper in it than the ponies. With all his knowledge and experience of the moor the colonel found it difficult to pick his way, and Lady Eleanor's horse floundered so deep that she was once or twice obliged to dismount before he could get out. Still the woman led them on until at last the worst of the ground was past, though the horses still sank at least fetlock-deep at every step. The watershed was left behind and the ground began to fall rapidly, though it was so heavily seamed by a network of deep drains dug by the water through the turf, that without a guide any one would have found it almost impossible to find a way out. Colonel George watched carefully for landmarks as he went on, and looked out keenly for the hut, but could see nothing. Once or twice the woman smiled grimly as she saw his eyes roving in every direction, and the colonel smiled back and said: "It's a good job that the deer do not cross here, mistress, for no horse could live with them;" but she only shook her head and said nothing.
At length the rank red and yellow grass of the boggy ground showed a patch or two of heather. They were riding upon a ridge between two streams, and Colonel George was wondering which of the two they were about to follow, when the woman turned sharply downward on one side and followed the stream up for a little way; and then suddenly there opened out a little cross combe, so deep and narrow that the colonel might have been excused for not seeing it. At one point a mass of rock rose out abruptly from the earth, which had evidently turned the water from above, so that for a short distance the stream ran almost the reverse way to its true course. Against the rock the washing of centuries had thrown up a bank of pebbles, now thickly overgrown with grass; and there lay the hut, almost invisible from any point, against the rock, sheltered from the westerly gales and gathering more of the eastern and southern sun than could have been thought possible. The goats ran bleating towards the three as they rode up, for they had not been milked that morning; and the woman's face was set hard as she went to the door of the hut and presently returned to beckon Lady Eleanor in.
