"It's nothing, my Lady," he said. "I'd sooner have lost both legs than
that this should have come." And he bowed and limped out; but within
an hour and a half he came galloping back with Colonel George, who had
met him on the road, and was hurrying over to say that though he had
ridden to the death of the hunted stag he had seen nothing of the
children then nor at any other time.
"Is the fog as thick on the moor as they say?" asked Lady Eleanor,
speaking bravely, though she was white to the lips.
"So thick that without a compass I could not have found my way across
it," said Colonel George. "It is right that you should know the truth.
But the farmers on the edge of the moor know what has happened and are
riding as far as they dare with whistles and horns--Brimacott saw to
that--and I propose to join them myself at once."
"I shall go with you," said Lady Eleanor, quietly.
Colonel George hesitated for a moment and then answered as quietly: "Be
it so; then you must ride my horse, which is cleverer on the moor than
any of yours. I will take my groom's, and you must let him have a
horse to take back some directions from me to Fitzdenys. Brimacott,
with your permission, shall watch the road by which you drove out this
morning, in case the ponies should find their way there."
Lady Eleanor soon came down in her habit, impatient to start, but found
Colonel George writing, with a tray of food and drink set down by him.
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