Mr. Pepys professed himself wholly enlightened by the farmer’s rigmarole of “keep to t’ beech hanger on thy left”—“get ye down into t’ bottom”—“second lane ye come by afore t’ brook, and t’ second yonder along under t’ brow wid a turnip-field under t’ hedge.” John Gore had the seaman’s sense of direction, nothing more. Mr. Pepys was accustomed to strange documentary ambiguities, and persisted cheerfully that he knew just how to go. And thus it befell that the Secretary lost himself valiantly a second time that day, and meeting not so much as a ploughboy to put him right, he lumbered on stubbornly, trusting to good-fortune. The dusk came down and caught them as they followed a rough “ride” that pretended to run in the direction of Battle Town. But it led them ungenerously into the heart of a wood, and then disappeared amid impassable undergrowth that was black with the coming night. Mr. Pepys could face it out no longer. They were lost, and he accepted the blame of it, ruefully wishing that he had bottles in lieu of pistols in his holsters. “What’s to be done, Jack? No ‘Half Moon’ for us to-night.” A wind had risen and was beating through the underwood, making a dismal moan and setting the brown leaves shivering. The horses’ hoofs sucked at the spongy soil. Woodland and sky would soon be one great black void. “We had better pick our way back and trust to luck.” “And to think, John, that we left that warm corner of a kitchen! I would give a guinea for the smell of the smoked bacon, and a glimpse of the wood fire licking the chimney.” They began to pick their way back again, the woodland “ride” growing black as the gallery of a mine. Their horses drooped their heads and went mopingly as though feeling as hungry and dismal as their masters. The hazel twigs kept stinging Mr. Pepys’s face, and though he swore peevishly at the first flick across the cheek, he pulled his hat down over his nose and took his punishment with the grim silence of a man who has only himself to blame. A word from John Gore, who rode a little ahead, made Mr. Pepys perk up in the saddle. “What—John—what?” “A light over yonder.” “God bless the smallest candle, John, that strives with this infernal darkness.” They had come out from the wood, and could see far below them in a valley a faint glimmer of light. The ground seemed to fall away into a long sweep of vague gloom. The sky had become dark with clouds, and though they could see nothing but that faint spark of fire, they could hear the trees whispering and muttering not ten yards away. “We had better make for the light.” Mr. Pepys acquiesced fervently, the night growing raw and cold, and full of eerie sounds. “I begin to think great things of Mr. Bunyan,” quoth he; “there is a sermon in yonder candle that makes me remember the responsibilities of my immortal soul.”