and 'the Shepherd' has been talkin' it over. He sez to
me, 'Snarley, when you lose a sheep, you goes after it into the
wilderness, and you looks and looks till you finds. But this time it's a
shepherd that's lost. Now you stay quiet where you are, and keep your
eyes and ears open day and night. I know where he is; he's all right;
and I'm lookin' after him. By and by I'm going to hand him over to you.
Him and you has got to drink together, but it'll be a drink o' gall for
both on you. When the time comes, I'll give you the sign.'"

"The sign come," he added, later on, "the sign come that night in the
Nag's Head, when the groom told us about the kettle. I'd just had a drop
o' something short, and when I looks up there were 'the Shepherd'
sittin' in the chair next but one to Shoemaker Hankin. Just then the
groom come in, and 'the Shepherd' gets up and comes over to a little
table where I'd got my glass. The groom sits down where 'the Shepherd'
had been, and 'the Shepherd' sits down opposite to me. The groom says,
'Boys, I've got summat to tell you as'll make your hair stand on end.'
'Fire away,' says Tom Barter; and 'the Shepherd,' he holds up his finger
and looks at me. When the groom had done, and they were all shoutin' and
laughin', 'the Shepherd' leans across the table and whispers, close in
my ear, 'Snarley, the hour's come! Drink up what's left in your glass.
It's time to be goin'.'"

* * * * *

During the trying time of his concealment and tending of Toller, "the
Shepherd's" presence became more frequent, and Snarley's
characterisation more precise. The belief that "the Shepherd" was
"backing him up" gave Snarley a will of iron. When Mrs. Abel, on the
night of his confession, essayed to reprove him for not obtaining
medical assistance for Toller, he drew himself as erect as his crippled
limbs allowed, and said quietly, in a manner that closed discussion, "It
were 'the Master's' orders, my lady. He'd handed him over to _me_." He
also said, or hinted, that "the Master" had taught him the
method--whatever it may have been for sending Toller to sleep, "that
were better than all the doctor's bottles." From the same source,
doubtless, came his secret for "setting Toller's mind at rest." That
secret is undivulged; but it was connected in some way with what Snarley
called "the Shepherd's Plan," of which all we could learn was that
"there were three men on three crosses, him in the middle be