Page:The Delectable Duchy.djvu/257

 He reached a hand round his basket, and touching me on the knee, pointed back on Tregarrick. "There's a wall," he said, and I saw by the direction of his finger that he meant the wall of the county prison, "and beneath that wall's a road, and across that road's a dismal pool, and beyond that pool's a green hillside, with a road athurt it that comes down and crosses by the pool's head. Standin' 'pon that hillside you can see a door in the wall, twenty feet above the ground, an' openin' on nothing. Leastways, you could see it once; an' even now, if ye've good eyesight, ye can see where they've bricked it up."

I could, in fact, even at our distance, detect the patch of recent stone-work; and knew something of its history.

"Now," the old man continued, "turn your looks to the right and mark the face of Tregarrick town-clock. You see it, hey?"—and I had time to read the hour on its dial before Boutigo jolted us over the ridge and out of sight of it—"Well, carry them two things in your mind: for they mazed Dan'l Best an' murdered his brother Hughie."

And, much as I shall repeat it, he told me