CHAPTER I. IN THE MOSS



I can conduct you, lady, to a low
But loyal cottage where you may be safe
Till further quest.--MILTON.


On a moorland slope where sheep and goats were dispersed among the
rocks, there lay a young lad on his back, in a stout canvas cassock
over his leathern coat, and stout leathern leggings over wooden
shoes. Twilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light
rested on the top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading
away, though the sky to the westward still preserved a little pale
golden light by the help of the descending crescent moon.

'Go away, horned moon,' murmured the boy. 'I want to see my stars
come out before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting
up already. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have
longer time to-morrow--and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger,
and thou mightst let me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high
in the sunset, pale and fair, but not mine! That's the evening star
--one of the wanderers. Is it the same as comes in the morning
betimes, when we do not have it at night? Like that it shines with
steady light and twinkles not. I would that I knew! There! there's
mine, my own star, far up, only paling while the sun glaring blazes
in the sky; mine own, he that from afar drives the stars in Charles's
Wain. There they come, the good old twinkling team of three, and the
four of the Wain! Old Billy Goat knows them too! Up he gets, and