"Aw, it be a akkerd road," doubtfully, as he looked Geoffrey up and down, and it dawned on him slowly that it was a stranger. "I'll give you a quart if you will show me." "Wull ee? Come on." The beer went at once right to the nervous centre and awoke all his faculties. He led Geoffrey across the plain and up a swelling shoulder of down, on whose ridge was a broad deep fosse and green rampart. "This be th' Cas'l," said the guide, meaning entrenchments--earthworks are called "castles." In one spot the fosse was partly filled up, and an opening cut in the rampart, by which he rode through and found the "castle," a vast earthwork of unknown antiquity. "Mind thaay vlint-pits," said the boy. The flint-diggers had been at work here long ago--deep gullies and holes encumbered the way, half-hidden with thistles and furze. The place was honeycombed; it reminded Geoffrey of the Australian gold-diggings. He threaded his way slowly between these, and presently emerged on the slope beyond the "castle." "Now which way is it?" he asked, glancing doubtfully at the hills still rolling away in unbroken succession. "Yellucks," said the boy, meaning "Look here," and he pointed at a dark object on a distant ridge, which Geoffrey made out to be a copse. "Thur's Moonlight Virs." "Well, and when I get to Moonlight Firs, which way then?" "Thee foller th' ruts--thaay'll take ee to Akkern Chace." "The ruts?" "Eez, th' waggon ruts; thaay goes drough Akkern Chace down to Warren. Be you afeared?" seeing Geoffrey hesitated. "Thaay'll lead ee drough th' wood; it be main dark under th' pollard oaks: Akkern Chace Be a unkid place, When th' moon do show hur face. "Wur be my quart?" Geoffrey gave him sixpence; he touched his forelock, called his dog, and whistled down the hill. Geoffrey pushed on as rapidly as his horse, now a little weary, would go for the firs. In half an hour he reached it, and found a waggon track which, as the boy had said, after a while led him into a wood--scattered pollard oaks, hawthorn bushes, and fir plantations. Now two fresh difficulties arose: the grey first limped and then went lame; and the question began to arise, Would Margaret after all come this way? In the gathering twilight, might she not take the circuitous, but safer, highway? She might even have already passed. By this time he was well into the wood--it consisted of firs there. The grey went so lame he resolved to go no farther, but to wait. He dismounted, threw himself at length upon the grass beside the green track, and the grey immediately applied himself to grazing with steady contentment.