Jock spoke to his father on very much the footing of an equal. They did not, as a rule, take much notice of each other; but the curious way in which they pursued their lives together had given the old man and the little boy a sort of tacit fellowship, not at all like the usual relation between father and child. Not once in two or three months was there any conversation between them, and this gave all the more importance to their occasional intercourse. “There was once a woman,” said Jock, “traveling through a wild, wild forest, and she had her three little children with her--quite little, little things, littler than me a great deal; when all of a sudden she heard pad, pad, something coming behind her. It wasn’t quite night, but it was getting dark, darker and darker every moment; and the old white horse got awfully frightened, and the forest was miles and miles long. She knew she couldn’t come to a village, or a house, for ever so long. And she heard them coming on faster and faster, sniffing and panting, and all after her, hundreds and hundreds of them; they’re like dogs, you know,” said Jock parenthetically, looking up from the rug, where he lay on his back, with the “History of the Plague” laid open on his breast; “they bark and they howl, just like dogs when you hear them far off in the woods; but when they’re after you, they go straight before them, like the wind blowing, and never make any sound.” “And what became of the woman and the children?” said old Trevor, partly amused, partly impressed. “The white horse[A] galloped on and on,” said Jock, with the instinct of a story-teller; “and the wolves came after, pad, pad, all like one, though there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and the woman in the sleigh (did I tell you it was a sleigh? but I don’t know rightly myself what a sleigh is) got wild with fright, and the three little things cried, and the trees made a noise against the sky; and the wood got deeper and deeper, and the night darker and darker; and then she heard them all panting behind her, and their breath hot upon her, and every moment she thought they would jump up behind and crunch her with their teeth--” [A] The poem of Ivan Ivanovitch had not been written in those days, and perhaps it might have been above Jock’s understanding. “Go on, child, go on,” said old Trevor. “I think I’ve heard the story; but I don’t remember how she got out of it.”