“No, I’ve never had the chance,” said Geoff. “I can’t tell what it’s like, that’s true; but if it ever comes my way----” “Ah, ay! it’s fine talking--it’s fine talking!” Geoff did not know how to reply. He went on impatiently, tossing aloft his young head, as a horse does, excited by his own words like the playing of a trumpet. They proceeded so up a stiff bit of ascent that taxed their strength and their breathing, and made conversation less practicable. The winding mountain road seemed to pierce into the very fastnesses of the hills, and the tall figure of the vagrant a stop in advance of him appeared to Geoff like the shadow of some ghostly pioneer working his way into the darkness. No twinkle of a lamp, no outline of any inhabited place looming against the lighter risings of the manifold slopes, encouraged their progress. The hills, which would have made the very brightness of the morning dark, increased the gloom of the night. Only the tinkle of here and there a little stream, the sound of their own footsteps as they passed on, one in advance of the other, the small noises which came so distinctly through the air--here a rustle, there a jar of movement, something stirring under a stone, something moving amid the heather, were to be heard. Bampfylde himself was stilled by these great shadows. His whistle dropped; and the low croon of song which he had raised from time to time did not take its place. He became almost inaudible, as he was almost invisible; only the sound of a measured step and a large confused outline seen at times against the uncertain openings and bits of darkling sky. When they came abreast again, however, on a comparatively smooth level, after a stiff piece of climbing, he spoke suddenly. “It’s queer work going like this through the dark. Many a night I have done it with no company, and then a man’s drawn out of himself watching the living things: one will stir at your foot, and one go whirr and strike across your very face, for they put more trust in you in the dark. You see they have the use of their eyesight, and the like of you and me haven’t. So they know their advantage. But put a man down beside another man, and a’s changed. I cannot understand the meaning of it. It puts things in your head, and it puts away the innocent creatures. Men’s seldom innocent: but they’re awful strange,” said the vagrant, with a sigh. “Do you think they are so strange? I am not sure that I do,” said Geoff, bewildered a little. “They are just like everything else--one is dull, one is clever; but except for that----”