Let that pass--I am never good at talking of things beyond me. All I
know is, that if I had met the Doone who had killed my father, I would
gladly have thrashed him black and blue, supposing I were able; but
would never have fired a gun at him, unless he began that game with me,
or fell upon more of my family, or were violent among women. And to
do them justice, my mother and Annie were equally kind and gentle, but
Eliza would flame and grow white with contempt, and not trust herself to
speak to us.

Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I was twenty-one
years old, a very strange thing, which affrighted the rest, and made me
feel uncomfortable. Not that there was anything in it, to do harm to any
one, only that none could explain it, except by attributing it to the
devil. The weather was very mild and open, and scarcely any snow fell;
at any rate, none lay on the ground, even for an hour, in the highest
part of Exmoor; a thing which I knew not before nor since, as long as
I can remember. But the nights were wonderfully dark, as though with no
stars in the heaven; and all day long the mists were rolling upon
the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a wash-house. The
moorland was full of snipes and teal, and curlews flying and crying, and
lapwings flapping heavily, and ravens hovering round dead sheep; yet no
redshanks nor dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers (of which we have
great store generally) but vast lonely birds, that cried at night, and
moved the whole air with their pinions; yet no man ever saw them. It was
dismal as well as dangerous now for any man to go fowling (which of late
I loved much in the winter) because the fog would come down so thick
that the pan of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of sight ere the
powder kindled, and then the sound of the piece was so dead, that the
shooter feared harm, and glanced over his shoulder. But the danger of