"How can you get a match at the foot of the hill? You'll have to go on to the inn. No, tie your handkerchief round the foot of one of the trees, and come up early in the morning to look."
"Early in the morning?" said Mabyn. "I hope to be in—I mean asleep then."
Twice she had nearly blurted out the secret, and it is highly probable that her refusal to adopt Wenna's suggestion would have led her sister to suspect something had not Wenna herself by accident kicked against the missing brooch. As it was, the time lost by this misadventure was grievous to Mabyn, who now insisted on leading the way, and went along through the bushes at a rattling pace. Here and there the belated wanderers startled a blackbird, that went shrieking its fright over to the other side of the valley, but Mabyn was now too much preoccupied to be unnerved.
"Keeping a lookout ahead?" Wenna called.
"Ay, ay, sir! No ghosts on the weather quarter! Ship drawing twenty fathoms and the mate fast asleep. Oh, Wenna, my hat!"
It had been twitched off her head by one of the branches of the young trees through which she was passing, and the pliant bit of wood, being released from the strain, had thrown it down into the dark bushes and briers.
"Well I'm—No, I'm not!" said Mabyn as she picked out the hat from among the thorns and straightened the twisted feather. Then she set out again, impatient over these delays, and yet determined not to let her courage sink.
"Land ahead yet?" called out Wenna.
"Ay, ay, sir, and the Lizard on our lee. Wind south-south-west and the cargo shifting a point to the east. Hurrah!"
"Mabyn, they'll hear you a mile off."