Malherb already saw a homestead spring upwards upon the green hill beneath Fox Tor. There would he lift his eyrie; there should successive generations look back and honour their founder; there--thunder broke suddenly upon his dreams and the bay horse shifted his fore-feet nervously beneath him. Whereupon he lifted his eyes, and found that a great storm was at hand. Unperceived it had crept out of the north while he stood wrapped in meditation; and now a ghastly glamour extended beneath it, for the Moor began to look like a sick thing, huddled here all bathed with weak yellow light from a fainting sun. Solitary blots and wisps of cloud darkened the sky and heralded the solid and purple van of the thunderstorm. All insect music ceased, and a hush, unbroken by one whisper, fell upon the hills. Cater's Beam suggested some prodigious, couchant creature, watchful yet fearless. Thus it awaited the familiar onset of the lightning, whose daggers had broken in its granite bosom a thousand times and left no scar. The wanderer spurred his horse, and regained firm foothold on the crest of the land; then, bending to a torrent of rain, he galloped westward where the gaunt wards and barracks of Prince Town towered above the desolation. But the tempest broke long before Malherb reached safety; darkness swallowed him and he struggled storm-foundered among the unfamiliar hills. Then fortune sent another traveller, and a young man, riding bare-backed upon a pony, came into view. Sudden lightning showed the youth, and, waiting for a tremendous volley of thunder that followed upon it, Malherb shouted aloud. His voice, though deep and sonorous, sounded thin as the pipe of a bird thus lifted immediately after the peal. "Hold there! Where am I, boy? Which is the way to Tor Royal?" "You be going right, sir," shouted the lad; "but 'tis a long road this weather. Best to follow me, if I may make so bold, an I'll bring 'e to shelter in five minutes." The offer was good, and Mr. Malherb accepted with a nod. "Go as fast as you can; I'll keep behind you." Both horses were moorland bred, for the visitor rode a stout hackney lent by his host. Yet Malherb had to shake up his steed to keep the native in sight. Presently the youth dismounted, and his companion became aware of a low cabin rising like a beehive before him. It stood at the foot of a gentle hill, within a rough enclosure of stone. Some few acres of land had been reclaimed about it, and not far distant, through the murk of the rain, its granite gleaming azure under the glare of the lightning, stood an ancient and famous stone. "Now I know where I stand," said the stranger. "I came this way three hours since. There rises Siward's Cross--is it not so?" "Ess, your worship, 'tis so. An' this cot do belong to my gran'mother. 'Tis a poor hole for quality, but stormtight. You please to go in that door an' I'll take your hoss after 'e. Us do all live under the same thatch--folks an' beastes."