them, by
continuing to call to them, and took their hands to lead them to the
track. But they were now drenched through with the rain, and shivered
with cold and fear. David, with a stout heart, endeavored to cheer them.
He told them the track was close by, and that they would soon be at
home. But though the track was not ten yards off, somehow they did not
find it. Bushes and projecting rocks turned them out of their course;
and, owing to the confusion caused by the wind, the darkness, and their
terror, they searched in vain for the track. Sometimes they thought they
had found it, and went on a few paces, only to stumble over loose
stones, or get entangled in the bushes.

It was now absolutely becoming night. Their terrors increased greatly.
They shouted and cried aloud, in the hope of making their parents hear
them. They felt sure that both father and mother must be come home; and
as sure that they would be hunting for them. But they did not reflect
that their parents could not tell in what direction they had gone. Both
father and mother were come home, and the mother had instantly rushed
out to try to find them, on perceiving that they were not in the house.
She had hurried to and fro, and called--not at first supposing they
would be far. But when she heard nothing of them, she ran in, and begged
of her husband to join in the search. But at first David Dunster would
do nothing. He was angry at them for going away from the house, and
said he was too tired to go on a wild-goose chase through the
plantations after them. "They are i' th' plantations," said he; "they
are sheltering there somewhere. Let them alone, and they'l come home,
with a good long tail behind them."

With this piece of a child's song of sheep, David sat down to his
supper, and Betty Dunster hurried up the valley, shouting, "Children,
where are you? David! Jane! Nancy! where are you?"

When she heard nothing of them, she hurried still more wildly up the
hill toward the village. When she arrived there--the distance of a mile
--she inquired from house to house, but no one had seen any thing of
them. It was clear they had not been in that direction. An alarm was
thus created in the village; and several young men set out to join Mrs.
Dunster in the quest. They again descended the valley toward Dunster's
house, shouting every now and then, and listening. The night was pitch
dark, and the rain fell heavily; but the wind had considerably abated,
and once