Sometimes they passed a mountain sheep-pen, and the sheep being disturbed, would bleat. Sometimes a dog at a distant house would hear them and bark; and even that, though it was a signal of danger, was also a sort of human companionship on the grim mountain-side.
It was a dreary walk, and to Dan, bound hand and foot on the horse, it was a painful ride—a cold one it could not be, for the awkward motion brought warmth. The night wore on, and the air grew keener; the men's beards became crisp with the frost.
At length the silent company rounded Snaefell to the north of Cronk-y-Vane and Beinn-y-Phott. Then Teare at the horse's head twisted about. "Do we take the ould mine-shed for it?" he asked.
"Ay," said Quilleash.
Their journey was almost ended. The sky over the sea behind them was then dabbled with gray, and a smell of dawn was coming down from the mountains.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A RUDE TRIBUNAL
The course taken by the coroner and his seven men, with Mona on the horse, came to a triangle of mountain-paths above a farm known as the Sherragh Vane. One path wound close under the west foot of Snaefell, another followed the bed of the river that ran through a glen called Crammag, and the third joined these two by crossing the breast of Beinn-y-Phott. At the acute angle of the Sherragh Vane the coroner drew up.
"Can any one see the lead shaft?" he asked. None could see it. The darkness had lifted away, and the crown of Snaefell was bare against the sky, like an islet of green floating over a cloud of vapor. But the mists still lay thick on the moorlands, and even the high glens were obscure.