but now a raging
torrent, which ran past Llandulas and into the Severn, at Llanidloes.

"Do you think that we are going right, Roger?" Oswald said, after they
had been walking for six or seven hours; "for, what with these ups and
downs, and turnings and windings, there is no saying which is east and
which is west. If the sun were shining we should be sure of our
direction, but with these dull leaden clouds there is no saying."

"I have no idea, master. If we were out on a moor we should be able to
judge, and to make a fairly straight course, keeping the wind and rain
on one side of us; but in this thick forest, though most of the leaves
have fallen, those that remain on the branches break up the rain, and
it seems to come straight down upon us."

Presently they came to another watercourse.

"Why, Roger, the water is going in the other direction!"

"So it is, master. How can that be?"

"It is just possible that we have crossed some dividing point, and the
water is making its way towards the south, and will fall into some
other river; but I am very much afraid that the real explanation is,
that we have entirely lost our way, and are going in the opposite
direction to that in which we started. The question is, shall we cross
it or shall we follow it down?"

"Just as you like," Roger said. "For myself, I think that the best way
would be to find some place where we could shelter. Tomorrow the sun
may be out again, and that will tell us which way to go. If we start at
daybreak, and keep it to our back, we can't go far wrong."

"Except that we may pass the army altogether, Roger. They told us that
the rearmost division was not more than ten miles ahead."

"We must have walked double that already, I should say, master."

"Not so much as that. We have been a long time over it, but it is slow
travelling over this broken ground, and thick wood. I am sure I hope
that we have not gone twenty miles, or anything like it; for in that
case, if we have been keeping fairly in the right direction, we must
have passed the army. If we have been going in the wrong direction,
there is no saying where we may be.

"Still, I think that your suggestion is a good one. It is of no use our
going on, when we may be getting farther away at every step. It is
lucky that we bought these thick cloaks, at Welshpool; for without them
we should have been soaked to the skin, hours ago."

"Well, as we have been wetted to the waist a score of times,