The whole party began to move, Mr. Hartwell and Wesley leading, and before they had proceeded for more than two hundred yards they heard the sound of talking just ahead of them, and the next moment a group of men loomed through the mist. Friends were also in the new party. “Were you them that sang out?” asked one of them. “Only in answer to your hail; we be no cravens, but always ready to help poor wanderers,” replied the talkative old man. “We did not sound a note before we heard a hail,” said the questioner in the new party. “We have not strayed yet, being bound for the preaching.” “Have you been on the horse road?” asked Hartwell. “The horse road? Why, sir, the horse road lies down the way that you came,” said the other. “Surely not, my friend. How could we have missed it?” said Hartwell. “If 'twasn't for the fog I could walk as steady for it as a mule,” said the old man. “Ay, friends, us any mule under a pack saddle, for I have traversed valley and cleft an hundred times in the old days, being well known as a wild youth, asking your pardon for talking so secular when a parson is by. I am loath to boast, but there was never a wilder youth in three parishes, Captain Hartwell.” (Mr. Hartwell had once been the captain of a mine.) “Surely we should be guided by the sound of the sea,” said Wesley. “A brief while ago I heard the boom of waters into one of the caves. If we listen closely we should learn if the sound is more distinct and thereby gather if we are approaching that part of the cliff or receding from it.” “Book-learning is a great help at times, but 'tis a snare in a streaming fog, or in such times of snow as we were wont to have in the hard years before the Queen died in her gorgeous palace,” remarked the patriarch. “One at a time, grandfather,” said a man who had arrived with the last party. “There's not space enough for you and the ocean on a morn like this. Hark to the sea.” They stood together listening, but now, through one of the mysteries of a fog, not a sound from the sea reached them. They might have been miles inland. “I have been baffled by a fog before now,” said a shepherd. “Have followed the bleat of an ewe for a mile over the hills, and lo, the silly beast had never left her lamb, and when I was just over her she sounded the faintest.” “Time is passing; should we not make a move in some direction?” said Wesley. “Surely, my friends, we must shortly come upon some landmark that will tell us our position in a moment.” “I cannot believe that in trying to cut off the mile for the Gap I went grossly astray,” said Mr. Hartwell. “I am for marching straight on.” “Straight on we march and leave the guidance to Heaven,” said Wesley.