0/ Dartmoor and its Borderland. 95 relating to objects of this kind on the moor, its restoration is rendered doubly desirable. As we stand beside the dismantled tomb, we shall perhaps feel a melancholy pleasure in giving the rein to our imagina- tion, and looking round upon the lonely valley, endeavour to picture it as the highland hunter " beheld it in the gloom of that winter evening, when the furious storm beat over him, and, exhausted and weary, he halted beneath the tor and felt he would never reach his home — For far and wide the highland lay One pathless waste of snow ; He paused ! — the angry heaven above, The faithless bog below."* No shelter is at hand, and death stares the bold hunter in the fisice. But love of life is strong within him ; by slaying his horse and creeping within its disembowelled carcase, he may shield himself from the falling snow. He gazes upon the trusty steed, and the hand that clasps his hunting knife falls powerless by his side. He cannot take the life of that noble animal which has so often borne him over the wide moor. With his head bent low before the raging storm he is pressing close to his master's side, as though for protection, and Childe can scarce suppress a tear as he regards him. But the snow is now deep around them, and further hesita- tion will involve the hunter's death. Turning away his face that he may not meet the animal's eye as he strikes the blow, Childe plunges his blade into the heart of the faithful brute — " And on the ensanguined snow that steed Soon stretched his noble form :— A shelter from the biting blast — A bulwark to the storm :•— In vain — for swift the bleak wind piled The snow-drift round the corse ; And Death his victim struck within The disembowell'd horse."t Bidding adieu to this spot, we shall cross the brook which flows down in front of the ruined farmhouse, and mount the hill on the opposite side. A path known to the moormen as Sandy Way runs near here, which, coming up from Fox Tor
- Carrington. Ballad of Childe the Hunter -flbid
