least, on this side of Dulverton, although
there is less danger now than in the time of my schooling; for now a
good horse may go there without much cost of leaping, but when I was
a boy the spurs would fail, when needed most, by reason of the
slough-cake. It is to the credit of this age, and our advance upon
fatherly ways, that now we have laid down rods and fagots, and even
stump-oaks here and there, so that a man in good daylight need not sink,
if he be quite sober. There is nothing I have striven at more than doing
my duty, way-warden over Exmoor.

But in those days, when I came from school (and good times they were,
too, full of a warmth and fine hearth-comfort, which now are dying out),
it was a sad and sorry business to find where lay the highway. We are
taking now to mark it off with a fence on either side, at least, when
a town is handy; but to me his seems of a high pretence, and a sort of
landmark, and channel for robbers, though well enough near London, where
they have earned a race-course.

We left the town of the two fords, which they say is the meaning of it,
very early in the morning, after lying one day to rest, as was demanded
by the nags, sore of foot and foundered. For my part, too, I was glad to
rest, having aches all over me, and very heavy bruises; and we lodged
at the sign of the White Horse Inn, in the street called Gold Street,
opposite where the souls are of John and Joan Greenway, set up in
gold letters, because we must take the homeward way at cockcrow of the
morning. Though still John Fry was dry with me of the reason of his
coming, and only told lies about father, and could not keep them
agreeable, I hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after a
victory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for me because he had a
good harvest, and the rats were bad in the corn-chamber.

It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that day, near to which
town the river Exe and its big brother Barle have union. My mother had
an uncle living there, but we were not to visit his house this time, at
which I was somewhat astonished, since we needs must stop for at least
two hours, to bait our horses thorough well, before coming to the black
bogway. The bogs are very good in frost, except where the hot-springs
rise; but as yet there had been no frost this year, save just enough
to make the blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty black-frost
they look small, until the snow falls over th