By this time the stony causeway had given place to a narrow footway that led through one of those swamps that vary the undrained surface of Dartmoor. To left and right rose tall reeds, thick enough to simulate a tropical cane-brake, while wild flax, mallows, and stunted alder-bushes abounded. The moor-hen sprang from her nest among the bulrushes that bordered the sullen pools of discoloured water, and the snake crept hissing through the coarse grass, as if angry at the unwonted trespass on his haunts. The unstable ground, even at that dry season of the year, shook beneath the feet of the explorers; and it was easy for Ethel to give credence to her pupil’s statement that even the hardy moorman avoided Bitternley Swamp in winter.
‘The place took its name from the bitterns that used to abound here,’ said Lady Alice; ‘but there is no nook too lonely for the men whom the London bird-stuffers employ, and the last bittern was shot two years since. Soon there won’t be a feathered creature, except pheasants and partridges and perhaps the saucy sparrows, left alive.—But that’—as they passed a sheet of dark water, stained by the peat of the morass until it resembled ink in hue—‘is Blackpool; and yonder, among those rocks on the bank above, is the Hunger Hole. You cannot see the opening of the grotto from here—that is the beauty of it—but wait till we get quite close, and then you will understand how naturally the cave was made to hide in.’
Even when the two girls had got clear of the swamp and scrambled up the rude flight of steps, nearly effaced by time and rains, that facilitated the scaling of the precipitous bank, Ethel could see no signs of the grotto they sought, until her youthful companion pulled aside the hazel boughs, that grew between two angles of lichen-incrusted rock, and disclosed, about a yard above their heads, a narrow fissure, too low for a person of ordinary stature to enter without stooping, and even then half-hidden by grass and brambles.
‘That is the Hunger Hole,’ said Lady Alice triumphantly. ‘A fugitive may lie concealed here, I think, if the enemy were ranging all the moor to capture him. It is higher inside than at the mouth, and the bridge within gives access to the inner chamber. Come; we must be quick.—Ah! there is no danger,’ added the girl, mistaking the cause of her companion’s hesitation.