ears in connection with the
tree had been in his mind, and had wrought on him until it culminated in
that passionate outburst and his strange request. It was when he was a
boy, not quite ten years old, that, one afternoon in the summer time, he
went with other children to look for wild raspberries on the summit of
the great down. Johnnie, being the eldest, was the leader of the little
band. On the way back from the brambly place where the fruit grew, on
approaching the thorn, they spied a number of rooks sitting on it, and
it came into Johnnie's mind that it would be great fun to play at crows
by sitting on the branches as near the top as they could get. Running
on, with cries that sent the rooks cawing away, they began swarming up
the trunks, but in the midst of their frolic, when they were all
struggling for the best places on the branches, they were startled by a
shout, and looking up to the top of the down, saw a man on horseback
coming towards them at a gallop, shaking a whip in anger as he rode.
Instantly they began scrambling down, falling over each other in their
haste, then, picking themselves up, set off down the slope as fast as
they could run. Johnnie was foremost, while close behind him came Marty,
who was nearly the same age and, though a girl, almost as swift-footed,
but before going fifty yards she struck her foot against an ant-hill and
was thrown violently, face down, on the turf. Johnnie turned at her cry
and flew back to help her up, but the shock of the fall, and her extreme
terror, had deprived her for the moment of all strength, and while he
struggled to raise her, the smaller children, one by one, overtook and
passed them, and in another moment the man was off his horse, standing
over them.

"Do you want a good thrashing?" he said, grasping Johnnie by the collar.

"Oh, sir; please don't hit me!" answered Johnnie; then looking up he was
astonished to see that his captor was not the stern old farmer, the
tenant of the down, he had taken him for, but a stranger and a
strange-looking man, in a dark grey cloak with a red collar. He had a
pointed beard and long black hair and dark eyes that were not evil yet
frightened Johnnie, when he caught them gazing down on him.

"No, I'll not thrash you," said he, "because you stayed to help the
little maiden, but I'll tell you something for your good about the tree
you and your little mates have been climbing, bruising the bark with
your heels and breaking off