But how to get out was the difficult matter . And indeed I do n't think he would ever have got out at all , but have stayed there till the cock-robins covered him with leaves , if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall . Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant , especially if it is a loose wall , with the stones all set on edge , and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful stars . The stars are very beautiful , certainly ; but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second , and the pain which comes after them does not . And so Tom hurt his head ; but he was a brave boy , and did not mind that a penny . He guessed that over the wall the cover would end ; and up it he went , and over like a squirrel . And there he was , out on the great grouse-moors , which the country folk called Harthover Fell -- heather and bog and rock , stretching away and up , up to the very sky . Now , Tom was a cunning little fellow -- as cunning as an old Exmoor stag . Why not ? Though he was but ten years old , he had lived longer than most stags , and had more wits to start with into the bargain . He knew as well as a stag , that if he backed he might throw the hounds out . So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to his right , and run along under the wall for nearly half a mile . Whereby Sir John , and the keeper , and the steward , and the gardener , and the ploughman , and the dairymaid , and all the hue - and-cry together , went on ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction , and inside the wall , leaving him a mile off on the outside ; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily . At last he came to a dip in the land , and went to the bottom of it , and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor ; for he knew that he had put a hill between him and his enemies , and could go on without their seeing him . But the Irishwoman , alone of them all , had seen which way Tom went . She had kept ahead of every one the whole time ; and yet she neither walked nor ran . She went along quite smoothly and gracefully , while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see which was foremost ; till every one asked the other who the strange woman was ; and all agreed , for want of anything better to say , that she must be in league with Tom . But when she came to the plantation , they lost sight of her ; and they could do no less . For she went quietly over the wall after Tom , and followed him wherever he went . Sir John and the rest saw no more of her ; and out of sight was out of mind .
And now Tom was right away into the heather , over just such a moor as those in which you have been bred , except that there were rocks and stones lying about everywhere , and that , instead of the moor growing flat as he went upwards , it grew more and more broken and hilly , but not so rough but that little XXXXX could jog along well enough , and find time , too , to stare about at the strange place , which was like a new world to him .
Exmoor John Tom and-cry cock-robins first grouse-moors moor ploughman second