“Good God, what’s thet?” said he, as a fiendish scream awoke the echoes of the rugged hills. “Don’t sound like et, but et must a’ come from thet cottage over theere. Iss sure, theere’s a light in the winder. Semmen to me ’tes uncommon like murder.”
He had taken but a few stumbling steps along a track into which he had turned, ere the faint thud of hoofs fell on his ear. More and more distinct through the night came the sound, broken at times by a shout. A rocky hollow lay in front of him; down which rider and horse came at a furious pace, splashing the water as they dashed through the stream below. Breasting the rise at the same frantic speed they were over the brow and almost upon the Earthstopper before he was aware, and scarcely had he jumped aside when they galloped past him.
Merest glimpse though he got of the man, he recognised him, for his face was turned towards the light as it lay over the horse’s neck. It was Jago the miner.
“Good Lor’, what’s the maanin’ of et? Why don’t eh stop the hoss?”
“Don’t take me for a Jack-o-Lantern, s’pose?”
Some distance along the stony track the clatter of the hoofs ceased. The Earthstopper ran towards the spot.
A minute later the Earthstopper, with one hand resting on the mane of the heaving horse, was looking up at the miner’s blanched face.
“What’s the matter wi’ ee, Jago? you looked skeared.”
“Steve es killed by a faal o’ ground. We brought un hoam an hour agone. Et wor moore nor Mawther could stand. Her rason’s clane gone.”
In breathless haste he spoke, and with a shout he was gone, his path picked out in sparks, as the good horse without bridle or rein covered the ground to the slumbering village.
Andrew stood peering through the night till the tiny fires died away and the beat of the hoofs struck faint as the footfall of a child.
This incident had unnerved the lonely Earthstopper.
More than once as he ascended the Galver he turned his head, though without staying his steps, to see that it was but the terrier that followed him. Panting from the hurried climb he rested on a boulder of the cairn and set the lantern down on the turf at his feet. The bitch nestled between her master and the flickering flame.
The stars shone in all their splendour, but it was the glow-worm light that crept through the gloom below which riveted the Earthstopper’s gaze.