me.

And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand,
like an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but
trodden on him, jumped up with a noise like the express train,
leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves, like an
old coward, and went off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck--murder,
thieves, fire--cur-u-uck-cock-kick--the end of the world is
come--kick-kick-cock-kick." He was always fancying that the end of the
world was come, when anything happened which was farther off than the
end of his own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any more
than the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite
certain of it.

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,
and said solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is
not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after
to-morrow--cock." But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all
about it, and a little more. And, besides, she was the mother of a
family, and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day; and that
made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she
answered was: "Kick-kick-kick--go and catch spiders, go and catch
spiders--kick."

So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great wide
strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air. But he went more and more
slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad
indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches
of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks
between the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from
stone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his
little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he
would go on and up, he could not tell why.

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind
him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road? But
whether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it was
that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never saw
her, though she saw him.

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he had
run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was
as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a
limekiln, til