nd wanted to know more about him, and whether
he might not have avoided this miserable end, and what his wife and
children thought of it, if, indeed, he had any.

But John would talk no more about it; and perhaps he was moved with a
lonesome feeling, as the creaking sound came after us.

"Hould thee tongue, lad,' he said sharply; 'us be naigh the Doone-track
now, two maile from Dunkery Beacon hill, the haighest place of Hexmoor.
So happen they be abroad to-naight, us must crawl on our belly-places,
boy."

I knew at once what he meant--those bloody Doones of Bagworthy, the awe
of all Devon and Somerset, outlaws, traitors, murderers. My little legs
began to tremble to and fro upon Peggy's sides, as I heard the dead
robber in chains behind us, and thought of the live ones still in front.

"But, John," I whispered warily, sidling close to his saddle-bow; "dear
John, you don't think they will see us in such a fog as this?"

"Never God made vog as could stop their eyesen," he whispered in answer,
fearfully; "here us be by the hollow ground. Zober, lad, goo zober now,
if thee wish to see thy moother."

For I was inclined, in the manner of boys, to make a run of the danger,
and cross the Doone-track at full speed; to rush for it, and be done
with it. But even then I wondered why he talked of my mother so, and
said not a word of father.

We were come to a long deep "goyal," as they call it on Exmoor, a word
whose fountain and origin I have nothing to do with. Only I know that
when little boys laughed at me at Tiverton, for talking about a "goyal,"
a big boy clouted them on the head, and said that it was in Homer, and
meant the hollow of the hand. And another time a Welshman told me that
it must be something like the thing they call a "pant" in those parts.
Still I know what it means well enough--to wit, a long trough among
wild hills, falling towards the plain country, rounded at the bottom,
perhaps, and stiff, more than steep, at the sides of it. Whether it be
straight or crooked, makes no difference to it.

We rode very carefully down our side, and through the soft grass at
the bottom, and all the while we listened as if the air was a
speaking-trumpet. Then gladly we breasted our nags to the rise, and were
coming to the comb of it, when I heard something, and caught John's
arm, and he bent his hand to the shape of his ear. It was the sound of
horses' feet knocking up through splashy ground, as if the bottom sucked
the