"Dewerstone do look fine to-night," she said, glancing up at the crags above them.
"It does, then. The Water Stone I always call it, since I read in a book that that was what it meant. 'Tis the great stone by the water, you see. Have you ever heard tell of the Black Hunter, Cora? But perhaps you don't hold with such old wife's tales?"
She put him at his ease and assured him that she loved ancient fables and liked to go on believing them, despite her better knowledge.
"Just the same as me!" he cried eagerly. "The very thing I do. How wonderful you should feel the same! I know 'tis rubbish, yet I let it go sadly. I'd believe in the pixies, if I could!"
"Who was the Black Hunter, if you don't mind telling me?" she asked. "I'll sit here a bit afore I go on, if it won't be to hinder you."
"Proud I am, I'm sure," he said. "And as for him, the Black Hunter, that's no more than another name for the Devil himself. 'Twas thought that he'd come here by night with his great, bellowing, red-eyed dogs, and go forth to hunt souls. A coal-black horse he rode; but sometimes he'd set out afoot, for 'tis well remembered how once in the deep snow, on a winter morn, human footprints, along with hoofmarks, were traced to the top of the hill, but not down again!"
"The devil flew away with somebody?"
"So the old story says. But I like the thought of the little Heath Hounds better. For they hunt and harry old Nick's self. They are the spirits of the young children who die before they are baptised; and the legend hath it that they win to heaven soon or late by hunting the Prince of Darkness. 'Tis the children that we bury with maimed rites upon 'Chrisomers' Hill' in the churchyard. They put that poor woman who killed herself in the same place, because the old parson wouldn't read 'sure and certain hope' over her."
But Cora was not interested in his conversation, though she pretended to be. She endeavoured to turn speech into a more personal road.
"What have you come here for? I hadn't any idea you ever took walks alone."