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, till everything round seemed quivering and melting in the glare.

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.

So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and he thought he heard church bells ringing, a long way off.

“Ah!” he thought, “where there is a church there will be houses and people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup.”  So he set off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he heard the bells quite plain.

And so it was; for from the top of the mountain he could see—­what could he not see?

And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and said, “Why, what a big place the world is!”

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom.  Before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees.  They all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to see that they were long miles away.

[Illustration.]

And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded away, blue into blue sky.  But between him and those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go; for that was the place for him.

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear stream glance.  Oh, if he could but get down to that stream!  Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out in squares and beds.  And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly.  As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat.  Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat.  And there were the church bells ringing again.  Surely there must be a village down there.  Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened at the Place.  The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John had set all the policemen in the country after him; and he could get down there in five minutes.

Tom was quite right about the hue and cry not having got thither; for he had come, without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below.