ss of his beast: he was ready to swear an oath that he
wouldn't rest till he had caught the malefactor, and agreed upon the
instant to watch out every night in the week with me round about 'The
Fisherman's Rest' on chance of coming across the suspect either going or
returning.

'Ay, Aah'll gan mahself, an' Aah'll tak feyther's owd gun wi' me there,
for Aah'll stan' none o' his reiver tricks, an' Tom and Jack, they'll
come along too, an' 'od burn him, but we'll nab him betwixt us, the
impudent scoundrel, if it's a leevin' man he is.'

By eight o'clock we four had ensconced ourselves in hiding-places on all
sides of the little inn, having tethered our horses within a small but
thick-grown covert above the rise that led to the inn door. Here I
stationed myself and for better vision climbed a tree wherefrom I
commanded the whole situation. The others hid themselves as they found
shelter convenient, one below the cliff's edge some two hundred yards to
the east, another amongst broken boulders to the southward, while Farmer
Johnson crouched behind the wall that girt the road leading past the
ale-house from the north.

'Twas weary work watching, more by token that that night nothing
appeared save a thirsty fisherman or two, and a stray, shuffle-footed
vagrant or the like.

Next night the same, and I for one was growing somewhat cold, but Farmer
Johnson, bull-like in his obstinacy, swore he wouldn't shave his chin
till he had 'caught summat,' so off we started on the third night to our
rendezvous.

'The third time brings luck,' thought I, as I squatted down in the fork
of the same old twisted elm; 'and 'tis something stormy this evening,
which might suit our reiver's tastes.'

It would then be about eight of the clock, as I may suppose, the wind
from the seaward, the clouds lowering, fringed with a moonlight border
like broidery on a cloak, and that raw, cold touch in the air that
chills worse than the hardest winter's frost.

The night grew stormier; vapour lifted upward, and assumed strange and
threatening shape. The cloud forms might be the giants rising up out of
Jotunheim, and advancing to attack Odin and the Aesir--the evil wolf
Fenrir in the van--his bristles silvered by the moon.

An hour passed, and I began to wish I had never undertaken the quest, or
mentioned the matter to Farmer Johnson, when I heard, as if some way
off, not exactly a neigh, but a sort of defiant snorting, such as a
stallion breathes forth