The walk was a swift but silent one. The road lay white beneath their feet, and the moon, which was now sinking in the sky, threw long strange shadows over the world. The track grew rougher as it rose upon the down-land, but both were good walkers, and did not heed. The great hound paced silently behind them as they moved, till all at once it lifted up its huge head, and after sniffing the air suspiciously for a while, broke into a low deep bay. At that sound both pedestrians stopped and listened intently, and in a few brief moments they heard a noise. It was not the sound of the measured tramping they had expected first to hear, but rather that of voices--voices in confabulation or dispute, sometimes low and confused, sometimes rising higher and higher, as if in angry debate--the voices of a multitude, as was testified by the continual hum, in addition to the more distinct sounds of argument or strife. The moon just now had passed behind a cloud, and the moor was very dark, but Mr. Tremodart and Bride walked swiftly and silently forward, leaving the road for the soft grass, as they deflected their course, so as to come near to the spot where the colloquy was being held. Their footsteps made no sound, and Bride held the hound by the collar and hushed him into silence. Very soon they had approached near enough to hear what was passing, and to catch every word of a harangue being delivered in a voice which both of them knew only too well. “I tell yu yu are cowards to think only of duing what is safest and easiest for yourselves. Are we fighting for ourselves, or for our miserable and oppressed brothers? Men, we are bound together in a great undertaking; and if we stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight, and are true tu ourselves and tu each other all over the land, no power can stand against us. We are bound together tu overthrow tyrants and oppressors--the great ones of the earth, who fatten upon our misery and grind us to the very dust. Those are our enemies, and all of yu know it as well as I. And now to-night, when the power is in our hands, are we to disgrace our cause by falling upon men only a little better off than ourselves, and wrecking their goods and bringing them to misery? No--I say no. I say that would be a coward act. And those who want to go to yon upland farm, and ruin a man who was once as one of us, till by his industry he raised himself to comfort, or his father before him, must go alone. I will not be with him. There is one man only in these parts upon whose goods I will lay a hand, and that is the Duke of Penarvon. He is the type tu us of that wealth and power we are banded together tu overthrow, and I will lead yu on tu his place and lay down my life in the struggle with all joy. But I will knock down the first man who tries to go to the farm, and yu men in the crowd who owe the farmer a grudge and hound the rest on to attack him, yu best know whether or not I can keep my word!”