f us had much thought of finding out about poor
lost Harry Foster. How could we, with all those city detectives, from
East Dene and Thorsby, even (they whispered) from Scotland Yard itself,
ranging everywhere like pointer dogs over the heather?

Indeed we were almost like dogs on a scent ourselves, so keen were we
to see with our eyes the mysterious Grange and all the queer folk
there. I hardly think we would have turned aside to look at Harry
Foster himself, had he been lying in his last bloody sleep, as plain as
in a waxwork. But we were not tried. Nothing of the kind happened.

As we went across the moor, every low spiky arch of bramble and tuft of
gorse was shining and sparkling. The wren and the gowdspink were
preening themselves and shaking off the dews that fell on their
feathers as they fussed to and fro about their nesting business. Then
we dived into Sparhawk Wood, and came out again on the country
cross-road along which Bailiff Ball had seen Dappled Bess plunging
madly with her empty cart. The Brom Water flowed still as a canal on
our left, down towards the Moat Pond. It was certainly heartsomer to
be out under the sky and the crying whaups, with the blue Cheviots
looking over the tree tops, than in Grange Longwood, where somebody
might be watching you from behind every bush and you none the wiser.

But before we came to the Bridge End, where we had found the marks of
the struggle that first morning, Elsie had an idea that if we struck
across the road and kept round the edge of the Brom Water, we would
escape the bailiff's cottage and stand a good chance of seeing Deep
Moat Grange without being discovered by anybody.

When we got there it was only about six in the morning, and eerie
enough in the gloomy bits, where you could not see a handsbreadth of
sky, and nasty things, which you told yourself were only rabbits, would
keep moving and rustling in the undergrowth.

I would have been glad to go back even then, because after all, it was
silly. Just imagine--mad folks, and murderers, maybe, skulking in
coverts! I am as brave as anybody when all is open and I have a chance
to run. I am too old to believe in ghosts, of course; but for all that
there are queer things to be seen in old green droopy woods like that
of Deep Moat Hollow. The trees whisper and seem to know such a lot.
After about an hour I get shivers down my back.

But it was no use arguing with Elsie. She went on first, and I guarde