“We must dismount for a few hours, Will,” said Philip, “otherwise our cattle will go dead lame. My poor Caesar is not so young as he was, and I do not like to distress him. It is now seven o’clock; what say you if we dismount until midnight?”
It seemed a long time to me, for I was raging to push forward anywhere and anyhow, if only I could get news of my dear Rose Lisle, but I knew that we could do no less than he proposed. I had hoped we might get some news of her in Sheffield, but when we rode into it I found it to be a place larger than Pontefract, with many inns, and filled with smoke, coming from the furnaces of workers in iron and steel, so that I cared not how soon we got away from the bad air and clanking hammers.
“Mind what you do or say here, Will,” said Philip. “I fear we are amongst Roundheads in this place, and I have no mind to experience such treatment as we met in Pontefract marketplace, when old Master Pratt clapped us into his cellar. I know of a place where they are true to the King, so we will make for that and be safe until our horses are rested.”
We accordingly passed through the town, not entirely unobserved, and finally drew rein at a hostelry which stood in a retired situation over against the road which leads from Yorkshire into Derbyshire. Here we found an ancient landlord, who greeted Philip Lisle very cordially and bade us welcome. But neither he nor his could tell us aught of Rose, so we were fain to stable our steeds and sit down to wait with what patience we could. They set meat and drink before us, but neither felt inclined for eating, and I think a mouthful of bread would have choked me. At last, indeed, I grew so restless that I proposed we should go forth and make inquiry at some of the other inns in the town.
“We should surely do as well occupied in that fashion as sitting here doing naught,” said I; “and as for me, I can bear this idleness no longer, and shall go mad if I am not occupied.”
“Agreed,” said Philip; and we set out into the town and proceeded as cautiously as possible to make inquiries at such inns as travellers usually put up at. No news, however, did we hear, and received many a scolding for our foolishness in asking folks to remember what had happened four days before. They had too much to do, said all that we spoke to, to remember every stray party that paused to water their horses. So we did no good in that direction, and presently returned to our own inn, which we left shortly after midnight, the horses being somewhat recovered by their rest and rations.
It was a bright moonlight night, and the country to the west, which we were now traversing, rapidly assumed shapes and forms with which until then I had never been familiar. The ground began to rise until it was shaped in high hills, more or less steep, with long valleys, now wooded and now barren, winding away between them. To my eyes, which had never seen aught higher than the hills at Brayton and Hambleton, nor any valley wider than that of Went, this scenery was very awful, and brought over me a curious feeling of admiration and wonder. It was so silent and lonely, with no sound save the clank of our horses’ feet, or the clatter of our swords against the stirrup-irons, and the clouds that floated over the moonlit hills looked so weird and ghostly, that I could almost have imagined myself in some of the fairy haunts that I had heard folks talk about.
Through these dales and over the passes that cross the surrounding hills we rode for some hours until we had climbed over Derwent Edge, and were drawing near to the country round the Peak. Here the hills assumed rougher and wilder shapes, and the valleys became deeper and darker. Presently the road along which we had ridden became less well defined, and we found ourselves traversing what was little more than a bridle-path that wound up and down the hillsides. It was now morning, and the sun was rising above the hills to the westward, and our horses once more began to show signs of fatigue. However, I could see nothing in the shape of human habitation whichever way I turned.
“It seems as if we had lost our way,” I said, drawing rein until Philip Lisle came abreast of me. “The path grows narrower and narrower, and bids fair to be lost altogether presently.”
“I have been this way once before,” said he, pulling up his horse and looking round, “and it runs in my mind that there is a farmstead close by. Let us push on over yonder hill and see if we cannot discover it.”
When we came to the top of the high ground he had pointed out, the farmstead lay exactly beneath us—a lonely and desolate-looking group of buildings, round which I could see no sign of life. On the steep hillsides that rose about it a few mountain sheep strayed hither and thither, but there were no cattle in the valley, and no smoke came from the chimneys of the house.
“It looks as if its inhabitants were all gone to the wars, Will,” said Philip Lisle, as we descended the hillside and drew near to
