His tone was not encouraging, but as he hastened to give the lad his breakfast and a drink of beer, Jack passed over the change of manner, and rocking himself from side to side, as far as the strap would let him, went merrily upwards, munching as he rode. Over Pateley Bridge and Pateley moors they went, and upwards still to Bewerley Fell, whence they saw the Riding stretched like a picture behind them. Jack fancied, but that was, impossible, that he could see the chimneys and the great oak at Pattenhall. Leaving Bewerley they skirted Hebdon Moor on the north side, rising here so high that Jack could see nothing on either hand but horrid crags, and ridges of grey limestone and vast slopes of grey rock. Here, too, there was little turf and no heather, but only stone-crop and saxifrages, with cruel quagmires and bogs in the hollows. The very sky seemed changed. It grew dark and overcast, and clouds and mist gathered round the travellers, hiding the path, yet disclosing from time to time the huge brow of Ingleborough or the flat head of Penighent. The wind moaned across the grey steeps, and a small rain began to fall and quickly wet them to the skin. The boy shuddered. "Are these the moors?" he asked. "Ay, these are the moors!" his companion answered grimly. "And moorland weather. Yon's the High Moors and Malham Tarn. Your eyes are young. Do you see a grey spot in the nook to the right, yonder, two miles away! That is Little Howe, and we are bound for it." "Who lives there?" Jack answered, as he looked drearily over the desolate upland. "My brother," the butler answered, with a touch of ferocity in his tone. "Simon Gridley, he is called, and you will know him soon enough." CHAPTER II. MALHAM HIGH MOORS. Still nearly an hour elapsed before the tired horse stopped at the door of the small grey dwelling which Gridley had pointed out. The house, a rough farmstead of four rooms, stood high in a nook of the moor, facing Ingleborough. A few yew-trees filled the narrowing dell behind it with black shadow; a low wall of loose stones which joined one ridge to another formed a fold before it. The clatter of hoofs, as the horse climbed the rocky slope leading to the house, brought out a man and woman, who, leaning on this wall, watched the couple approach. The aspect of the man was stern, dry, and austere; in a word, at one with the harsh and rugged scene in which he lived. His gloomy eyes and square jaw seemed signs of a character resolute, narrow, bigoted, and it might be cruel. At first sight the woman appeared a helpmeet well suited to him. Her narrow forehead and thin lips, her pinched nose and small blue eyes, seemed the reproduction in a feminine mould of his more massive features. Despite this, she constantly produced upon strangers a less favorable impression than he did; and though this impression was rarely understood, it lingered long and faded slowly if at all.