CHAPTER IX

A MOORLAND DEATH-TRAP

THOUGH Phyllys could hardly be called obstinate, she liked to carry out her intentions. On the way to Thacker's farm she saw a thickness clothing the fells, but it made no great impression on her mind. From morning to night she thought now of little but the promised visit to Castle Hill.

After tea and a chat with the farmer and his wife, she spoke of return.

"I should like to stay for hours," she said, "if it were only to see the cows 'provened.'" She loved to use local colloquialisms, and the old man chuckled, pleased with her pretty ways. "Oh, and I must go along the fother'em and take a look at the stalls. Have you any calves?—Any stirks? You see, I know all about it!"—merrily.

At length she was off; and rather by a mechanical movement, than of intent, she turned towards the moor, carrying over one shoulder the heavy shawl.

Not till on the lower slopes of the fell did she note how heavy was the grey pall that hid the heights. As yet she approached only its dragging fringes, but she had to ascend, and it was getting on for five o'clock. The fog would thicken as evening advanced.

But, as Giles had said, she was not easily frightened. She found the shawl heavy; and she would have to go all the way back to the farm before beginning the long round by the road. She had only to keep to the track. When she reached the other side, descending towards Midfell, she would soon leave fog behind.

"Shall we go on, Wiggles?" she asked. "It looks rather horrid up there. But turning back would be still more horrid. Shall we make a dash for it?"

Wiggles wagged his tail.

"Ready for anything, are you not, you old dear? I'll try!" And she murmured, touching in turn each coat-button, "Will go!—Won't go!—Will go!—Won't go!" Till the last was reached. "The 'will' has it. Come along."

Having decided, she pressed forward, and was surprised to find how much farther the way seemed in these conditions than in sunlight.

Still, she was on the path, and she was all right.

The fog at first was not so dense as when, later, Giles retraced his steps, but it was dense enough to be unpleasant; and more than once she regretted not having chosen the road. She met no human being, and heard no voice. Dim outlines of bushes dawned as she walked, and disappeared again. She advanced at a good pace; and presently, growing used to the gloom, she fell into a muse upon the coming joys of Castle Hill.

Giles would be there; and to know more of Giles would be charming. She liked him. He was just the sort of friend she wanted; caring for the things she cared for; ready to hear, prompt to understand. Then there would be Mrs. Keith and Colin. She might not like the latter so much as Giles; still the fact that Giles thought much of Colin proved that there was good in him. About Mrs. Keith she was doubtful. Giles had been reserved; but she had detected a something in his manner which suggested lack of admiration.

However, since Mrs. Keith had wanted Phyllys to go to Castle Hill, she would be grateful.

It would be such an escape! She would be in a new world, free to see with her own eyes, to hear with her own ears, to form her own ideas, to observe, to learn, to feel, without home trammels. She would be no longer in a stiff groove, where everybody was expected to think the same as everybody else, under penalty of condemnation.

How dense the fog was! Absorbed in anticipations, she had not noted surroundings, but had followed the track in a mechanical fashion. Now she realised that it was time to have reached the brow of the fell.

Wiggles drew her attention. He was close to heel, not running about as was his wont. When she looked, he sat down, as if unwilling to go farther.

"Why, Wiggles, are you tired?"

She went on, and he followed, then again sat down, with a whine.

Phyllys knew that in keeping to the track she was all right, fog or no fog. She had but to go on. But a doubt assailed her. This "was" the track, of course—this shadowy line. She bent to look more closely, and stood up, grave in face.

Not the right path. It was a mere sheep-track, probably leading to the top of the fell. In sheer absence of mind she had quitted the path to Midfell—perhaps at one of the rocky breaks—and had turned along this instead.

Vexed at her carelessness, she hurriedly retraced her steps, following the feeble little line. Soon she was brought to a standstill; for it died out, and she searched in vain for a continuation. The ground here was stony, and doubtless a continuation did exist; but she could not find it.

Phyllys kept her head. She stood still, striving to grasp her situation.

No easy matter this, to the most experienced man, in such a fog, with all landmarks blotted out. She did not understand fully the risks involved. Had she felt more afraid, she might have allowed Wiggles to act as her guide; but she was naturally confident, and the idea did not so much as occur to her. Wiggles, satisfied that she no longer aimed for the summit, awaited her pleasure.

"All right," she said aloud, having made up her mind whereabouts she stood. She pictured the way that she had—must have—come. She placed the hills mentally, localised Midfell, and decided on her direction. Then she started briskly, and Wiggles followed—reluctantly still, as if not happy.

No sign of the vanished track appeared, but she went on in good spirits, convinced that she was nearing the ridge behind Midfell, expecting each minute to find the path. According to her reasoning, this was a certainty. If the top of the fell lay "there," and the village of Midfell "there," then the track along the hillside "must" cut across somewhere in front.

She failed to gauge the momentous character of that word "if."

That she should have lost all count of the true positions of hill-top and of village; that north and south, east and west, should be as one to her consciousness; that in the fog she should not know whether she was going uphill or downhill; that when she supposed herself to be following a straight line, she was describing a semi-circle which brought her indeed within half-a-mile of the lost track, but to a part of the fell which beyond every other ought to have been avoided—all this was miles from her imagination.

It did occur as curious that the fog should thicken instead of lessening as she—according to her belief—neared the moor-edge. But the advance of evening might account for so much. The track must now be close, and she hurried on, shivering with the clammy atmosphere. The heavy shawl still hung over her left shoulder; and lifting its front folds she flung them over her right shoulder, for warmth.

She was growing anxious, and because she would not give in to the feeling, she hurried on more recklessly, not noting how Wiggles hung back.

Ah, here was boggy ground. "I must keep clear of that," she thought, being used to such patches on the moors. Many a time she had crossed them, springing from root to root of heather, deftly avoiding insecure parts.

A yelp made her glance round. Nose in air, with cocked ear, Wiggles had made out something which failed to reach her duller senses. Then he was off, regardless of her recall. Perhaps he knew that disobedience had become a duty.

Phyllys hesitated, but she could not follow, for he was out of sight, swallowed up in the white curtain. She supposed that he had caught sight of some small creature, and had started in chase. He would be back directly, and would find her.

She scanned her limited circle of visibility. In front and to the right lay an expanse of green—bright green, so far as anything could be bright in such an atmosphere. It was mottled with red and yellow, variegated moss-hues; and dotted with clumps of rushes. Here and there grew the white-tufted cotton-grass; and wiry bog-grass of an olive-green with red tintings might be seen in abundance. Despite the dulness, these colours, which in sunshine would have been ominously brilliant, suggested a need for caution.

She could not see far. She did not suspect that this was no mere patch of boggy soil—that a wide reach of treacherous slime, with only a thin coating of moss and grass, a death-trap for the unwary, lay around. On a clear day she would have read tokens of peril in the very brightness of colouring, which alike concealed and revealed the deadly danger. But though she had been in sunshine to this place, and had been warned of the trap which that fair surface offered, she never dreamt that she was now on its verge.

It was just a bit of "saft" ground, as they call it in Scotland, and she was not troubled. She went on again, more swiftly than before, eager to cross it, then to wait for Wiggles. One moment later she would have heard Giles' voice shouting—but—

A false step; and she plunged in, over both ankles. It took her by surprise. The effort to save herself might have proved successful, had she been going cautiously. But the impetus of her run made it impossible to stop; and as she tried to leap to what looked like a firm spot, she caught her foot in a tangle of rushes.

She fell far forward, spread-eagle fashion, sliding on with the struggle to save herself, down into the horrible slimy bog, which yielded beneath her.

Phyllys was a girl of high courage, but in that moment of terrible helplessness and sinking, the soft, sucking, sticky grip upon her limbs and the sense of nothing to cling to, nothing to hold by, nothing to pull against, brought a sickening agony of terror.