The men uttered a fierce shout, and their leader, seeing now that his task was hopeless, began to retire and join his companions.
Ralph watched him for a few moments, and then began to climb again, finding this part of the slope easy, for great pieces of stone were piled up, and made fast by the bushes which grew amongst them, hiding the fugitive from the sight of those below, and raising his hopes as he found how easily he could get up.

Twice over he heard shouts and their echoes from the opposite side, but he was too busy to heed them, and soon felt confident enough to sit down in a niche, half-way up the cliff, and rest for a few minutes.
"Horribly wet," he said to himself; "fishing-rod broken and lost, fish-can gone, and--ah! I did not expect that," for he found that shoes, hose, and creel were safe.

"Glad I shall take the fish home after all." He listened: all was still.

Then he peered down, but he could see nothing save the bushes and trees on the other side; even the river was invisible from where he sat; and getting his breath now after his exertions, he turned, and began to look upward.
Ralph was born somewhere about three miles from where he sat, but he had inadvertently wandered into a part that was perfectly unfamiliar to him, the feud between the two families having resulted in its being considered dangerous for either side to intrude within the portion of the rugged mountainous land belonging to the other.
Still, the lad had some notion of the bearings of the cliff hills from seeing them at a distance, and he rapidly came to a conclusion as to which would be the best course for him to take to avoid the occupants of the Black Tor; but when any one is flurried he is liable to make mistakes, and much more likely when deep in a tangle of pathless wood, and listening for the steps of those who are seeking to make him a prisoner.
According to Ralph's calculations, the narrow gap which led eastward to the edge of the huge hollow in which the narrow, roughly conical mass of limestone rose crowned with the Eden Castle, lay away to his left; and as he had in climbing kept on bearing to the right, he was perfectly certain that he had passed right over the men in the river.

He felt, therefore, that he had nothing to do but keep steadily on in the same course, always mounting higher at every opportunity of doing so unseen, until close to the top, when he could keep along the edge unseen till well on his way homeward, and then take to the open downs above.
The silence below was encouraging, and in spite of being compelled often to creep beneath the bushes, and here and there descend to avoid some perpendicular piece of rock, he got on, so that he grew more and more satisfied that he had escaped, and had nothing to do but persevere, and be well out of what had promised to be a very awkward predicament.