wn as he sped along.

Now as you may imagine, I too had battered my brain with various
conjectures, but without practical result till one night after hunting
all day, and having lamed my mare badly with an overreach, I was
returning slowly homeward by a short cut across Eston Nab, so as to
strike the Guisboro' Road, and thence straight to Skelton.

'Twas a stormy November night, time about nine o'clock, for I had stayed
supper with a friendly yeoman, one Petch, of a noted family hereabout,
and was trudging a-foot, so as to ease the mare, along the desolate
hill-top, where in a kind of basin there lies a lonely pool of water,
set round in the farther side by a few draggled, wind-torn firs.

There was a swamped moon overhead, shining now and again as wreckage
shows amongst billows, the gleam but momentary, so that when I caught
sight of a kneeling figure across t' other side of the mere I could
scarce distinguish anything at all, whether 'twere a boggart, as they
say here, or some solitary shepherd seeking his sheep.

However, at that moment there was a break overhead, and the moon,
rheumy-eyed, shook her head clear of cloud, whereby I saw plain enough
'twas a tall, burly man kneeling beside some object or other, and a
mighty big horse standing a bit to the rearward of him.

I drew nigher without being perceived, and the light still holding, saw
that 'twas a young stirk or heifer the man was disembowelling.

'Ha, ha!' shouts I, without a further thought than that here was the
midnight miscreant and cattle-stealer, and that I had caught him
red-handed.

With that he lifts his head and gazes across the pool at me fixedly for
an instant of time, then with a whistle to his horse, leaps to his feet,
vaults to the saddle, and swings away at a hard gallop round the mere's
edge, the moonlight flashing back from some big axe he was carrying in
his right hand.

'Tally ho!' shouted I, commencing to run after him, bethinking me he was
for escaping, but no sooner had he rounded the edge some hundred and
fifty yards away than I saw 'twas he who was chasing me.

Another look at him tearing towards me was sufficient to change my
resolution, and hot foot I tore round to t' other end, trusting to win
to the wood's edge before he could catch me up.

I heard the hard breathing of the horse close behind me, the crunch of
his hoofs coming quicker and quicker; one fleeting glimpse I threw
backward, and saw a bright axe gleam above me