erry down!"

A cheery voice rolling out the chorus of an old west-country ditty.

Then there was a run of a few yards, a sudden stoppage, and a round, red
missile was thrown with considerable force after a blackcock, which rose
on whirring wings from among the heather, his violet-black plumage
glistening in the autumn sun, as he skimmed over the moor, and
disappeared down the side of a hollow coombe.

"Missed him," said the thrower, thrusting his hand into his pocket, and
bringing out a similar object to that which he had used as a missile,
but putting it to a far different purpose; for he raised it to his
mouth, drew back his red lips, and with one sharp crunch drove two rows
of white teeth through the ruddy skin, cut out a great circular piece of
apple, spat it out, and threw the rest away.

"What a sour one!" he cried, as he dived after another, which proved to
be more satisfactory, for he went on munching, as he made his short cut
over the moor towards where, in a sheltered hollow, a stone building
peeped from a grove of huge oaks.

The sun shone brightly as, with elastic tread, the singer, a lad of
about sixteen, walked swiftly over the elevated moorland, now descending
into a hollow, now climbing a stiff slope, at whose top he could look
over the sea, which spread away to north and west, one dazzling plain of
damasked silver, dotted with red-sailed boats. Then down another slope
facing the south, where for a moment the boy paused to deliver a sharp
kick at something on the short fine grass.

"Ah, would you!" he exclaimed, following up the kick by a jump which
landed him upon a little writhing object, which repeated its first
attack, striking with lightning rapidity at the lad's boot, before lying
crushed and helpless, never to bask in the bright sun again.

"Serve you right, you nasty poisonous little beast!" cried the boy,
crushing his assailant's head beneath his heel. "You got the worst of
it. Think the moor belonged to you? Lucky I had on my boots."

He dropped upon the ground, drew off a deer-skin boot, and, with his
good-looking, fair boyish face all in wrinkles, proceeded to examine the
toe, removing therefrom a couple of tiny points with his knife.

"What sharp teeth adders have!" he muttered. "Not long enough to go
through."

The next minute he had drawn on his boot, and set off at a trot, which
took him down to the bottom of the slope, and half up the other side of
the coombe, at whose bo