_ CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. IN THE EARLY MORNING
Churchwarden Rounds kept his word, for at the first break of day his vigorous arms sent the ting-tang ringing in a very different way to that adopted by old Chakes for the last few minutes before service commenced on Sunday morning and afternoon. And he did not ring in vain, for though the search was given up in the night the objections were very genuine. Everyone was eager to help so respected a neighbour as the doctor, and to a man the searchers surrounded him as he walked up to the church; even Wrench the carpenter, and Chakes the sexton putting in an appearance in a different suit to that worn over-night and apparently none the worse for the cold plunge into peaty water they had had.
The rector was not present, and the little expedition was about to start, when Macey came running up to say that Mr Syme was close behind.
This decided the doctor to pause for a few minutes, and while it was still twilight the rector with Gilmore and Distin came up, the former apologising for being so late.
"I'm afraid that I fell asleep in my chair, Lee," he whispered. "I'm very sorry."
"There is no need to say anything," said the doctor sadly. "It is hardly daybreak even now."
Gilmore looked haggard, and his face on one side was marked by the leather of the chair in which he had been asleep. Macey looked red-eyed too, but Distin was perfectly calm and as neat as if he had been to bed as usual to enjoy an uninterrupted night's rest.
When the start was made, it having been decided to follow the same course as over-night, hardly a word was said, for in addition to the depression caused by the object in view, the morning felt chilly, and everything looked grim and strange in the mist.
The rector and doctor led the way with the churchwarden, then followed the rector's three pupils, and after them the servants and townspeople in silence.
Macey was the first of the rectory trio to speak, and he harked back to the idea that Vane must be caught in the brambles just as he had been when trying to make a short cut, but Gilmore scouted the notion at once.
"Impossible!" he said, "Vane wouldn't be so stupid. If he is lost on the moor it is because he slipped into one of those black bog holes, got tangled in the water-weeds and couldn't get out."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Macey with a shudder. "Oh, I say: don't talk like that. It's too horrid. You don't think so, do you, Distie? Why it has made you as white as wax to hear him talk like that."
Distin shivered as if he were cold, and he forced a smile as he said hastily:--
"No: of course I don't. It's absurd."
"What is?" said Gilmore.
"Your talking like this. It isn't likely. I think it's a great piece of nonsense, this searching the country."
"Why, what would you do?" cried Macey.
"I--I--I don't know," cried Distin, who was taken aback. "Yes, I do. I should drive over to the station to see if he took a ticket for London, or Sheffield, or Birmingham, or somewhere. It's just like him. He has gone to buy screws, or something, to make a whim-wham to wind up the sun."
"No, he hasn't," said Macey sturdily; "he wouldn't go and upset the people at home like that; he's too fond of them."
"Pish!" ejaculated Distin contemptuously.
"Distie's sour because he is up so early, Gil," continued Macey. "Don't you believe it. Vane's too good a chap to go off like that."
"Bah! he is always changing about. Why, you two fellows call him Weathercock."
"Well!" cried Gilmore; "it isn't because we don't like him."
"No," said Macey, "only in good-humoured fun, because he turns about so. I wish," he added dolefully, "he would turn round here now."
"You don't think as the young master's really drownded, do you?" said a voice behind, and Macey turned sharply, to find that Bruff had been listening to every word.
"No, I don't," he cried angrily; "and I'll punch anybody's head who says he is. I believe old Distie wishes he was."
"You're a donkey," cried Distin, turning scarlet.
"Then keep away from my heels--I might kick. It makes me want to with everybody going along as cool as can be, as if on purpose, to fish the best chap I ever knew out of some black hole among the bushes."
"Best chap!" said Distin, contemptuously.
"Yes: best chap," retorted Macey, whose temper was soured by the cold and sleeplessness of the past night.
Further words were stopped by the churchwarden's climbing up the sandy bank of the deep lane, and stopping half-way to the top to stretch out his hand to the rector whom he helped till he was amongst the furze, when he turned to help the doctor, who was, however, active enough to mount by himself.
The rest of the party were soon up in a group, and then there was a pause and the churchwarden spoke.
"If neither of you gentlemen, has settled what to do," he said, "it seems to me the best thing is to make a line of our-sens along top of the bank here, and then go steady right along towards Lenby--say twenty yards apart."
The doctor said that no better plan could be adopted, but added:--
"I should advise that whenever a pool is reached the man who comes to it should shout. Then all the line must stop while I come to the pool and examine it."
"But we've got no drags or hooks, mester," whispered the churchwarden, and the doctor shuddered.
"No," he said hastily, "but I think there would certainly be some marks of struggling at the edge--broken twigs, grass, or herbage torn away."
"Look at Distie," whispered Gilmore.
"Was looking," replied Macey who was gazing fixedly at his fellow-pupil's wild eyes and hollow cheeks. "Hasn't pitched, or shoved him in, has he?"
"Hush! Don't talk like that," whispered Gilmore again; and just then the object of their conversation looked up sharply, as if conscious that he was being canvassed, and gazed suspiciously from one to the other.
Meanwhile the miller who had uncovered so as to wipe his brow, threw his staring red cotton handkerchief sharply back into the crown of his hat and knocked it firmly into its place.
"Why, of course," he said: "That's being a scientific gentleman. I might have thought of that, but I didn't."
Without further delay half the party spread out toward the wood which formed one side of the moor, while the other half spread back toward the town; and as soon as all were in place the doctor, who was in the centre, with Rounds the miller on his right, and the rector on his left, gave the word. The churchwarden shouted and waved his hat and with the soft grey dawn gradually growing brighter, and a speck or two of orange appearing high up in the east, the line went slowly onward towards Lenby, pausing from time to time for pools to be examined and for the more luckless of the party to struggle out of awkward places.
The rector's three pupils were on the right--the end nearest the town, Distin being the last in the line and in spite of Macey's anticipations, he struggled on as well as the best man there.
Patches of mist like fleecy clouds, fallen during the night, lay here and there; and every now and then one who looked along the line could see companions walk right into these fogs and disappear for minutes at a time to suddenly step out again on to land that was quite clear.
Hardly a word was spoken, the toil was sufficient to keep every one silent. For five minutes after a start had been made every one was drenched with dew to the waist, and as Macey afterwards said if they had forded the river they could not have been more wet.
Every now and then birds were startled by someone, to rise with a loud _whirr_ if they were partridges, with a rapid beating of pinions and frightened quacking if wild-fowl; and for a few moments, more than once, both Macey and Gilmore forgot the serious nature of their mission in interest in the various objects they encountered.
For these were not few.
Before they had gone a quarter of a mile there was a leap and a rush, and unable to contain himself, Bruff, who was next on Macey's left suddenly shouted "_loo_--_loo_--_loo_--_loo_."
"See him, Mester Macey!" he cried. "Oh, if we'd had a greyhound."
But they had no long-legged hound to dart off after the longer-eared animal; and the hare started from its form in some dry tussock grass, went off with its soft fur streaked to its sides with the heavy dew, and was soon out of reach.
Then a great grey flapped-wing heron rose from a tiny mere and sailed heavily away.
That pool had to be searched as far as its margin was concerned; and as it was plainly evident that birds only had visited it lately, the line moved on again just as the red disk of the sun appeared above the mist, and in one minute the grim grey misty moor was transformed into a vast jewelled plain spangled with myriads upon myriads of tiny gems, glittering in all the colours of the prism, and sending a flash of hopeful feeling into the boys' breasts.
"Oh!" cried Macey; "isn't it lovely! I am glad I came."
"Yes," said Gilmore; and then correcting himself. "Who can feel glad on a morning like this!"
"I can," said Macey, "for it all makes me feel now that we are stupid to think anything wrong can have happened to poor old Weathercock. He's all right somewhere."
Something akin to Macey's feeling of light-heartedness had evidently flashed into the hearts of all in the line, for men began to shout to one another as they hurried on with more elasticity of tread; they made lighter of their difficulties, and no longer felt a chill of horror whenever Rounds summoned all to a halt, while the doctor passed along the line to examine some cotton-rush dotted margin about a pool.
Working well now, the line pressed on steadily in the direction of Lenby, and a couple of miles must have been gone over when a halt was called, and after a short discussion in the centre, the churchwarden came panting along the line giving orders as he went till he reached the end where the three pupils were.
"Now, lads," he cried, "we're going to sweep round now, like the soldiers do--here by this patch of bushes. You, Mr Distin, will march right on, keeping your distance as before, and go the gainest way for the wood yonder, where you'll find the little stream. Then you'll keep back along that and we shall sweep that side of the moor till we get to the lane again."
"But we shall miss ever so much in the middle," cried Gilmore.
"Ay, so we shall, lad, but we'll goo up along theer afterwards, and back'ards, and forwards till we've been all over."
"But, I say," cried Macey, "you don't think we shall find him here, do you?"
"Nay, I don't, lad; but the doctor has a sort of idee that we may, and I'm not the man to baulk him. He might be here, you see."
"Yes," said Macey; "he might. There: all right, we'll go on when you give the word."
"Forrard, then, my lads; there it is, and I wish we may find him. Nay, I don't," he said, correcting himself, "for, poor lad he'd be in a bad case to have fallen down here for the night. Theer's something about it I can't understand, and if I were you, Mr Distin, sir, I'd joost chuck an eye now and then over the stream towards the edge of the wood."
Distin nodded and the line was swung round, so as to advance for some distance toward the wood which began suddenly just beyond the stream. There another shout, and the waving of the miller's hat, altered the direction again, and with Distin close by the flowing water, the line was marched back toward the lane with plenty of repetitions of their outward progress but it was at a slower rate, for the tangle was often far more dense.
And somehow, perhaps from the brilliancy of the morning, and the delicious nature of the pure soft air, the lads' spirits grew higher, and they had to work hard to keep their attention to the object they had in view, for nature seemed to be laying endless traps for them, especially for Macey, who certainly felt Vane's disappearance most at heart, but was continually forgetting him on coming face to face with something fresh. Now it was an adder coiled up in the warm sunshine on a little dry bare clump among some dead furze. It was evidently watching him but making no effort to get out of his way.
He had a stick, and it would have been easy to kill the little reptile, but somehow he had not the heart to strike at him, and he walked on quickly to overtake the line which had gone on advancing while he lagged behind.
Ten minutes later he nearly stepped upon a rabbit which bounded away, as he raised his stick to hurl it after the plump-looking little animal like a boomerang.
But he did not throw, and the rabbit escaped. He did not relax his efforts, but swept the tangle of bushes and brambles from right to left and back to the right, always eagerly trying to find something, if only a footprint to act as a clue that he might follow, but there was no sign.
All at once in a sandy spot amongst some furze bushes he stopped again, with a grim smile on his lip.
"Very evident that he hasn't been here," he muttered, as he looked at some scattered specimens of a fungus that would have delighted Vane, and been carried off as prizes. They were tall-stemmed, symmetrically formed fungi, with rather ragged brown and white tops, which looked as if in trying to get them open into parasol shape the moorland fairies had regularly torn up the outer skin of the tops with their little fingers; those unopened though showed the torn up marks as well, as they stood there shaped like an egg stuck upon a short thin stick.
"Come on!" shouted Gilmore. "Found anything?"
Macey shook his head, and hurried once more onward to keep the line, to hear soon afterwards _scape, scape_, uttered shrilly by a snipe which darted off in zigzag flight.
"Oh, how poor old Vane would have liked to be here on such a morning!" thought Macey, and a peculiar moisture, which he hastily dashed away, gathered in his eyes and excused as follows:--
"Catching cold," he said, quickly. "No wonder with one's feet and legs so wet, why, I'm soaking right up to the waist. Hallo! what bird's that?"
For a big-headed, thick-beaked bird flew out of a furze bush, showing a good deal of white in its wings.
"Chaffinch, I s'pose. No; can't be. Too big. Oh, I do wish poor old Vane was here: he knows everything of that kind. Where can he be? Where can he be?"
It was hot work that toiling through the bushes, but no one murmured or showed signs of slackening as he struggled along. There were halts innumerable, and the doctor could be seen hurrying here and hurrying there along the straggling line till at last a longer pause than usual was made at some pool, and heads were turned toward those who seemed to be making a more careful examination than usual; while, to relieve the tedium of the halt, Distin suddenly went splashing through the shallow stream on to the pebbly margin on the other side.
"Shan't you get very wet?" shouted Gilmore.
"Can't get wetter than I am," was shouted back then. "I say it's ten times better walking here. Look out! Moor-hens!"
"And wild ducks," cried Gilmore, as a pair of pointed-winged mallards flew up with a wonderfully graceful flight.
But the birds passed away unnoticed, for just then Distin uttered a cry which brought Macey tearing over the furze and brambles following Gilmore, who was already at the edge of the stream, and just then the signal was given by the miller to go on. _