ore the torches gleamed, though fainter and fainter;
and so full was the wood of echoes, that the voices, though distant,
seemed to halloo all round the agonized mother.

But presently there was a continuous yell, quite different from the
isolated shouts, a distant but unmistakable howl of victory that made a
bolt of ice shoot down her back, and then her heart to glow like fire.

It was followed by a keen whistle.

She fell on her knees and thanked God for her boy.

In the middle of this wood was a shallow excavation, an old chalk-pit,
unused for many years. It was never deep, and had been half filled up
with dead leaves; these, once blown into the hollow, or dropped from
the trees, had accumulated.

The very middle of the line struck on this place, and Moss, the old
keeper, who was near the center, had no sooner cast his eyes into it
than he halted, and uttered a stentorian halloo well known to
sportsmen--"SEE HO!"

A dead halt, a low murmur, and in a very few seconds the line was a
circle, and all the torches that had not expired held high in a flaming
ring over the prettiest little sight that wood had ever presented.

The old keeper had not given tongue on conjecture, like some youthful
hound. In a little hollow of leaves, which the boy had scraped out, lay
Master Compton and Miss Ruperta, on their little backs, each with an
arm round the other's neck, enjoying the sweet sound sleep of infancy,
which neither the horror of their situation--babes in the wood--nor the
shouts of fifty people had in the smallest degree disturbed; to be
sure, they had undergone great fatigue.

Young master wore a coronet of bluebells on his golden bead, young miss
a wreath of cowslips on her ebon locks. The pair were flowers, cherubs,
children--everything that stands for young, tender, and lovely.

The honest villagers gaped, and roared in chorus, and held high their
torches, and gazed with reverential delight. Not for them was it to
finger the little gentlefolks, but only to devour them with admiring
eyes.

Indeed, the picture was carried home to many a humble hearth, and is
spoken of to this day in Huntercombe village.

But the pale and anxious fathers were in no state to see pictures--they
only saw their children Sir Charles and Richard Bassett came round with
the general rush, saw, and dashed into the pit.

Strange to say, neither knew the other was there. Each seized his
child, and tore it away from the contact o