‘Now you shall have your drink,’ she cried encouragingly to Morgan. The sight brightened her, for she was parched dry herself. But the cottage was only a ruin with a broken gate on either side of it that had made a walled enclosure for sheep. Not very long ago sheep had been penned there, for torn fleece had stuck to the splinters of the gates and the road was strewn with dry dung. Abner went up to the door to see if by any chance they were mistaken; but the place was quite deserted. ‘Let’s sit down a bit,’ he said, and lit his pipe. She sat down wearily beside him. Morgan, smelling round the garden like a puppy, came back with a bunch of wallflowers and gave them to her. Their scent was a poor substitute for food, but she kissed his cold face. ‘I want a drink of water, mam,’ he said again. She looked desperately at Abner. ‘Wait till we come on a bottle of pop, son,’ he said. Morgan stared at him with big eyes. ‘Real pop?’ he asked. ‘You wait and see,’ said Abner cheerfully. Gladys, who had just begun to cry quietly in his arms, said that she was cold. ‘We’ll keep you warm, my pretty!’ he said, gathering her to his breast. ‘Are we nearly there, mam?’ came the voice of Morgan. ‘Yes . . . yes . . .’ She turned to Abner: ‘It can’t be much farther, the time we’ve been walking.’ He did not answer. ‘Up she comes!’ he said, kissing Gladys and lifting her gently. ‘Your ‘stache is all over water, Abner,’ the child whispered. They passed through the second gate, but here a new perplexity faced them. They had come to open moorland. The road that had hitherto been enclosed by stone walls was now no more than outlined by wheel-ruts bitten deep into the peaty soil. Mile upon mile of misty heather rolled away before them. Then the track faded altogether, splitting into three narrow lanes between the masses of ling. Abner stopped, and this, his first hesitation, filled Mary with dread. ‘Which way is it?’ she called. He could not answer. ‘We must be somewhere near the top,’ he said at last. ‘Somewhere on the far side of the Ditches. If it wasn’t for this stuff we could see all right.’ ‘But you can’t see,’ she said. ‘You don’t know. You don’t know any more than I do. We’re lost.’ ‘Don’t you go on so quickly,’ he said. ‘If we keep to the middle we can’t be far out.’ He pushed on a little. A hen grouse rose with a frightening flutter from under his feet. She went whirring away low over the heather with a harsh stuttering cry. ‘Where’s the cattypult, Morgan?’ Abner cried. And then they found water.