bogs, the circuit of which they were skirting, in order once more to lay the death-hounds on his track, where ever he should again strike the firm ground. In one hour after perceiving the position of his pursuers, he passed out of the marsh at about a mile north of the western-most watch-fire, and, in order as much as possible to baffle them, crawled for a couple of hundred yards up a shallow runnel of water, which drained down from the moorland into the miry bottom land. Once more he had secured a start of six hours over the Normans, but with this disadvantage--that they would have little difficulty in finding his trail on the morrow, and that the country which he had to traverse was so open, that he dared not attempt to journey over it by daylight. Forward he fared, therefore, though growing very weak and weary, for he was foot-sore and exhausted, and chilled with his long immersion in the waters, until the sun had been over the hills for about two hours, much longer than which he dared not trust himself on the moors, when he began to look about eagerly for some water-course or extensive bog, by which he might again hope to avoid the scent of the unerring hounds. None such appeared, however, and desperately he plodded onward, almost despairing and utterly exhausted, without a hope of escaping by speed of foot, and seeing no longer a hope of concealment. Suddenly when the sun was getting high, and he began to expect, at every moment, the sounds of the death-dogs opening behind him, he crossed the brow of a round-topped heathery hill, crested with crags of gray limestone, and from its brow, at some thirty miles distance, faintly discerned the glimmering expanse of Morecambe Bay, and the great fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland looming up like blue clouds beyond them. But through the narrow ghyll, immediately at his feet, a brawling stream rushed noisily down the steep gorge from the north, southerly. Headlong he leaped down to it, through the tall heather, which here grew rank, and overtopped his head, but before he reached it, he blundered into a knot of six or seven men, sleeping on a bare spot of greensward, round the extinct ashes of a fire, and the carcass of a deer, which they had slain, and on which they had broken their fast. Startled by his rapid and unceremonious intrusion into their circle, the men sprang to their feet with the speed of light, each laying a cloth-yard arrow to the string of a bended long-bow, bidding him "Stand, or die." For a moment, he thought his hour was come; but the next glance reassured him, and he saw that his fortune had again brought him safety, in the place of ruin.