“Your best way’ll be to get off at the gamekeeper’s lodge, and follow the main path till it forks by the owd quarry: then take the left hond path, and it’ll bring you straight to Stormy Point.”

They reached the top of the Edge, and after about quarter of a mile Gowther halted Prince before a cottage built of red sandstone and tucked in the fringe of the wood, Along the side of the cottage, at right angles to the road, a track disappeared among the trees in what Gowther said was the direction of Stormy Point.

The children jumped from the cart, and ran off along the track, while Gowther and Bess continued on their way, dwelling sentimentally on what it was to be young.

“Don’t you think we’d better go by the path Cadellin told us to use? He said it was the only safe one, remember.”

“We haven’t time to go all that way round,” said Colin; “we must show him your Tear as soon as we can. And anyway, Gowther says this is the path to Stormy Point, and it’s broad daylight, so I don’t see that we can come to any harm.”

“Well, how are we going to find Caddllin when we’re there?”

We’ll go straight to the iron gates and call him: being a wizard he’s bound to hear… I hope. Still, we must try!”

They pressed deeper and deeper into the wood, and came to a level stretch of ground where the bracken thinned and gave place to rich turf, dappled with sunlight. And here, in the midst of so much beauty, they learnt too late that wizards’ words are seldom idle, and traps well sprung hold hard their prey.

Out of the ground on all sides swirled tongues of thick white mist, which merged into a rolling fog about the children’s knees: it paused, gathered itself, and leapt upwards, blotting out the sun and the world of life and light.

It was too much for Susan. Her nerve failed her. All that mattered was to escape from this chill cloud and what it must contain. She ran blindly, stumbled a score of paces, then tripped, and fell full length upon the grass.