Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/225

 pixies, perhaps we are pixie-led at this very moment. If so, the cross will disappear. Why, Heaven help us! it's gone already. Well, the fog was considerate to lift when it did. At least we know our direction.'

They pushed their way cautiously through heather and gorse and roundabout innumerable ancient mine diggings. But where were the Hurlers? In the fog the rabbits looked as large as ponies, and the ponies they continually mistook for prehistoric stones. Most of the little mares had foals with them and were as wild as deer.

'We must be near to the place,' said Ripley. 'You keep to the footpath and I'll walk beside it through the heather. The stones are said to be at least twenty feet from the path. 'Or,' he added generously, 'would you rather be the explorer?'

He saw by her brightening eye that this would please her, and humbly took up his journey alone upon the footpath and let the young female, inappropriately (as most men would have thought) struggle through the heather and make the actual discovery. They called back and forth through the fog so that Lanice would not be lost. The thick atmosphere absorbed most of their voices. 'Professor Ripley,' she would call, and he would answer 'Miss Bardeen.' A little sparrow voice—'Professor Ripley,' a far-away rumble, 'Miss Bardeen.'

Once she cried, 'I've found them!'—but the objects she mistook for druid stones swished their tails, snorted and fled upon the moor. Then at last a vague black mass loomed before her and instantly behind