' said I; 'things being gone so far, it is now
my duty to know everything, for the sake of you girls and mother.'

'Hem!' cried Lizzie, in a nasty way; but I took no notice of her, for
she was always bad to deal with. Therefore John Fry began again, being
heartily glad to do so, that his story might get out of the tumble which
all our talk had made in it. But as he could not tell a tale in
the manner of my Lorna (although he told it very well for those who
understood him) I will take it from his mouth altogether, and state in
brief what happened.

When John, upon his forest pony, which he had much ado to hold (its
mouth being like a bucket), was come to the top of the long black combe,
two miles or more from Plover's Barrows, and winding to the southward,
he stopped his little nag short of the crest, and got off and looked
ahead of him, from behind a tump of whortles. It was a long flat sweep
of moorland over which he was gazing, with a few bogs here and there,
and brushy places round them. Of course, John Fry, from his shepherd
life and reclaiming of strayed cattle, knew as well as need be where he
was, and the spread of the hills before him, although it was beyond our
beat, or, rather, I should say, beside it. Not but what we might have
grazed there had it been our pleasure, but that it was not worth our
while, and scarcely worth Jasper Kebby's even; all the land being
cropped (as one might say) with desolation. And nearly all our knowledge
of it sprang from the unaccountable tricks of cows who have young calves
with them; at which time they have wild desire to get away from the
sight of man, and keep calf and milk for one another, although it be
in a barren land. At least, our cows have gotten this trick, and I have
heard other people complain of it.

John Fry, as I said, knew the place well enough, but he liked it none
the more for that, neither did any of our people; and, indeed, all
the neighbourhood of Thomshill and Larksborough, and most of all Black
Barrow Down lay under grave imputation of having been enchanted with a
very evil spell. Moreover, it was known, though folk were loath to speak
of it, even on a summer morning, that Squire Thom, who had been murdered
there, a century ago or more, had been seen by several shepherds, even
in the middle day, walking with his severed head carried in his left
hand, and his right arm lifted towards the sun.

Therefore it was very bold in John (as I acknowledged) to ven