The girls tried to remember. But somehow they only felt hazily that they had heard a good deal about Tom Faggus.
“Perhaps the fairy told us.”
Tom laughed again, very heartily. He didn’t seem to think much of fairies.
And now they were riding up to a house sunk a bit between the bare moor hills, with a high hedge running along one side, and trees beyond. A long, low house of stone, with thatched roof and overhanging eaves, and vines clambering up the walls. In the growing twilight, with the lights shining from its windows, it looked delightfully homey and hospitable. Men moved about in the yard, and as the mare reached the gate, a tall, handsome boy ran out.
“Is it you, Cousin Tom,” he cried eagerly.
“That it is. And here are two young maids with me whom I found lost on the heath.”
The boy looked curiously at the sisters, and as they started to slip to the ground he helped them, kindly if clumsily, to reach a footing.
“It’s John Ridd, isn’t it?” Rose spoke, half shyly. He looked at once so young and so big one hardly knew how to take him.
“John it is,” Tom said, fondling his mare. “And where is your mother, John?”
She came from the house at the word, and welcomed Tom and his charges very prettily. Hearing they had escaped from the Doones she shook her head sadly, and her eyes filled with tears, for she had cause enough to hate these robbers. John listened eagerly to the tale the girls told, when they were all in by the fire together, the mother getting supper and making things comfortable.