At the end of the lane is a cross road parallel to the river.

A broad still ditch lies beyond it, with a little bridge across, where one gets minnows for bait: then a broad water-meadow; then silver Whit.
The bridge-gate is open.

Tom hurries across the road to it.

The lanthorn shows him fresh footmarks going into the meadow.

Forward! Up and down in that meadow for an hour or more did Tom and the trembling youth beat like a brace of pointer dogs, stumbling into gripes, and over sleeping cows; and more than once stopping short just in time, as they were walking into some broad and deep feeder.
Almost in despair, and after having searched down the river bank for full two hundred yards, Tom was on the point of returning, when his eye rested on a part of the stream where the mist lay higher than usual, and let the reflection of the moonlight off the water reach his eye; and in the moonlight ripples, close to the farther bank of the river--what was that black lump?
Tom knew the spot well; the river there is very broad, and very shallow, flowing round low islands of gravel and turf.