Branching off from the right of the high-road lay the path up which Colonel Manners took his way, and which passed over a track upon the side of the hill, partly hedged in and cultivated, and partly left to its own ungrateful sterility. It was steep also, but Manners was a good climber; and, knowing that Mrs. Falkland's breakfast hour was half-past nine, he did not linger by the way, but soon found himself at the summit of the hill, and on the piece of waste ground which will be found in the county map under the name of Morley Common, or Morley Down. A good deal of dew had fallen in the night; and as the sun, who had not yet pursued his bright course far up the arch of heaven, poured the flood of his morning light upon the short blades of grass covering the common, the whole would have seemed crisp with hoarfrost, had not, every here and there, a tuft of longer leaves caught the rays more fully, and twinkled as if sprinkled with living diamonds, as the early air moved it gently in the beams. In different directions across the common might be seen a hundred small foot-roads, winding in that tortuous and unsteady manner which is sure to mark a path trodden out by man's unguided feet, and which offers no bad comment on his uncertain and roundabout way of arriving at his object; but, as the ground comprised many hundred acres, Colonel Manners might have been puzzled which way to take, had not his military habits at once sent him to the small planted tumulus which we have mentioned, in order to obtain a general view of the place. Climbing up the sides of the little mound, therefore, he gazed round him; but neither gipsies nor tents were visible; and he might have returned to Mrs. Falkland's, satisfied that they were not there, had not a small column of faint blue smoke, rising from behind some bushes, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, marked the presence of human beings in that direction, and shown that the bushes, though apparently not higher than a man's hat, masked some fall in the ground where the fire was kindled. Thither, then, Manners turned his steps, and soon perceived that another old sand-pit, with some bushes climbing up one of the sides, had given shelter to those of whom he was now in search.