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“Her be a baggarin’ auld sarpent for sartain, an’ goeth through the air on a birch broom or awver the sea in a eggshell, an’ many such-like devilries. In times past I judge the likes o’ she would burn for such dark wickednesses; though her did me a gude turn once, I’ll allow.”

While speaking, they had rounded the ragged side of Yar Tor, and then proceeding, passed to the north by some ancient hut circles of the old stone men. Following a wall, where the hill sloped, they found themselves confronted with the bird’s-eye view of a lonely, thatched cottage. Below it the land sank with abruptness; before the entrance extended a square patch of garden. No sign of life marked the spot; but as the men climbed down a pathway through withered fern, they aroused a bob-tailed, blue-eyed sheep-dog which leapt, gaunt and apelike, to the limit of its tether and barked wildly at the intruders. A naked austerity, a transparent innocence and poverty, marked the spot to casual eyes.

“Down these winding ways, or else out of the woods below, come Mother Gurney’s ‘sailor sons’ with their packs and barrels hid under innocent peat and rushes, no doubt,” commented Timothy.