We returned towards the hills, but we had anything but an easy walk, for
we could find no proper road, and walked on for hours in a "go as you
please" manner. Our whereabouts we did not know, since we could only see
a few yards before us. We walked a long way up hill, and finally landed
in some very boggy places, and when the shades of evening began to come
on we became a little alarmed, and decided to follow the running water,
as we had done on a very much worse occasion in the north of Scotland.
Presently we heard the rippling of a small stream, which we followed,
though with some difficulty, as it sometimes disappeared into the rocks,
until just at nightfall we came to a gate at the foot of the fells, and
through the open door of a cottage beheld the blaze of a tire burning
brightly inside. We climbed over the gate, and saw standing in the
garden a man who stared so hard at us, and with such a look of
astonishment, that we could not have helped speaking to him in any
case, even had he not been the first human being we had seen for many
hours. When we told him where we had come from, he said we might think
ourselves lucky in coming safely over the bogs on such a misty day, and
told us a story of a gentleman from Bradford who had sunk so deeply in
one of the bogs that only with the greatest difficulty had he been
rescued.
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