this desolate wide country, made
so much haste as they could after them; and this pace we rid, till we
lost sight of one another. At last our leaders were so civil, when
it was almost too late, to make another halt at the top of one of the
highest hills thereabout, just before we were to go to the moor: and
I was the last that got up to them, where, missing one of my
companions who was not able to keep up with us, I was in the greatest
perplexity imaginable, and desiring them to stay awhile, I rid back
again, whooping and hallooing out to my lost friend; but no creature
could I see or hear of, till at last, being afraid I had run myself
into the same inconvenience, I turned back again towards the
mountaineers, whom when I had recovered, they told me 't was no
staying there, and 't were better to kill our horses than to be left
in those thick mists, the day now drawing to an end: and so setting
spurs to their horses, they ran down a precipice, and in a short time
we had the favour to be rained on again, for at the top of this hill
we were drencht in the clouds themselves, which came not upon us drop
by drop, but cloud after cloud came puffing over the hill as if they
themselves had been out of breath with climbing it. Here all our
tackling failed, and he that fared best was wet to the skin, these
rains soaking through the thickest lined cloak: and now we were
encountering with the wild moor, which, by the stories we had been
told of it, we might have imagined a wild bore. I am sure it made us
all grunt before we could get over it, it was such an uneven rocky
track of road, full of great holes, and at that time swells with such
rapid currents, as we had made most pitiful shift, if we had not been
accommodated with a most excellent conductor; who yet, for all his
haste, fell over his horse's head as he was plunging into some dirty
hole, but by good luck smit his face into a soft place of mud, where
I suppose he had a mouth full both of dirt and rotten stick, for he
seemed to us to spit crow's nest a good while after. Now, being
forced to abate something of their speed, I renewed my acquaintance
with two of our new companions, and made them understand how we had
left a third man behind us, not being able to ride so fast, and how
our intentions were to stay at their own town with them this