This outrage formed the breaking-point of the rustic endurance of the Doones, who were tracked to their lair by large bodies of countryfolk and slain, and their stone huts demolished. The incident of the killing of the infant is told, with variations, by Blackmore, in “Lorna Doone”; a footnote declaring the author’s belief in the truthfulness of the legends regarding the raid, but holding that the Doones did not wilfully kill the child, which was fatally injured by being tossed playfully to the ceiling, and accidentally let fall. Variations of the final ending of the Doones place the scene at Robber’s Bridge, on the Weir Water, and tell how the Ridds were chiefly instrumental in bringing on the fight. Yenworthy Farm, formerly the property of the Snow family, was sold to the late Reverend W. S. Halliday of Glenthorne, by the late Mr. Nicholas Snow. Mr. Halliday also purchased the duck-gun traditionally said to have wounded the Doones. It is to remain always here, as a relic of the lawless old times. We may perhaps find in the name of Snow a significant clue to the evolutionary processes of these old stories told in past generations around local firesides on winter’s nights in those times when few could read, and when, if they owned that accomplishment, literature of any sort was scarce and dear. In tales repeated from mouth to mouth, all kinds of accretions are to be expected; and it will already have been noted how many are the variants of these Doone and other stories. The patient and contemplative seeker after truth may easily find in the name of Snow the origin of the snowy night on which the Doones attacked Yenworthy Farm, the owner of the property being gradually brought into the tale by the mishearings incidental to repetition. The last two surviving Doones are said, in legends current some years ago, and related by the Rev. W. H. Thornton, many years since curate at Countisbury, within the North Devon border, near Lynmouth, to have perished about the year 1800. They were an old man and his granddaughter, who for a long time had been used to roam the country, singing carols at Christmas-tide. They were said to have been found together in the snow, frozen to death, on the road between Simonsbath and Challacombe.