Still it was evident that he was originally from this
part of the country; it was odd no one had recognised him.
So George gave up this plan as hopeless. "Still," said he, "there is a
week left; surely I can contrive to bowl him out somehow." And then he
walked on in deep thought.
He was crossing the highest watershed in the county by an open, low-sided
valley on the southern shoulder of Cawsand. To the left lay the
mountain, and to the right tors of weathered granite, dim in the
changing moonlight. Before him was a small moor-pool, in summer a mere
reedy marsh, but now a bleak tarn, standing among dangerous mosses,
sending ghostly echoes across the solitude, as the water washed wearily
against the black peat shores, or rustled among the sere skeleton reeds
in the shallow bays.
Suddenly he stopped with a jar in his brain and a chill at his heart.
His breath came short, and raising one hand, he stood beating the
ground for half a minute with his foot. He gave a stealthy glance
around, and then murmured hoarsely to himself,--
"Aye, that would do; that would do well. And I could do it, too, when I
was half-drunk.
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