e. Nothing so terrible had happened within their experience.
They had the old Cumbrian horror of an accident to the dead. No
prospect was dearer to their hope than that of a happy death, and no
reflection was more comforting than that one day they would have a
suitable burial. Neither of these had Angus had. A violent end, and no
grave at all; nothing but this wild ride across the fells that might
last for days or months. There was surely something of Fate in it.

The dalesmen gathered about the fire at the Red Lion with the silence
that comes of awe.

"A sad hap, this," said Reuben Thwaite, lifting both hands.

"I reckon we must all turn out at the edge of the dawn to-morrow, and
see what we can do to find old Betsy," said Mr. Jackson.

Matthew Branthwaite's sagest saws had failed him. Such a contingency
as this had never been foreseen by that dispenser of proverbs. It had
lifted him out of himself. Matthew's sturdy individualism might have
taken the form of liberalism, or perhaps materialism, if it had
appeared two centuries later; but in the period in which his years
were cast, the art of keeping close to the ground had not been fully
learned. Matthew was filled with a sentiment which he neither knew nor
attempted to define. At least he was sure that the mare was not to be
caught. It was to be a dispensation somehow and someway that the horse
should gallop over the hills with its dead burden to its back from
year's end to year's end. When Mr. Jackson suggested that they should
start out in search of it, Matthew said,--

"Nay, John, nowt of the sort. Ye may gang ower the fell, but ye'll git
na Betsy. It's as I telt thee; it's a Fate. It'll be a tale for iv'ry
mother to flyte childer with."

"The wind did come with a great bouze," said John. "It must have been
the helm-wind, for sure; yet I cannot mind that I saw the helm-bar.
Never in my born days did I see a horse go off with such a burr."

"And you could not catch hold on it, any of you, ey?" asked one of the
company with a shadow of a sneer.

"Shaf! dost thoo think yon fell's like a blind lonnin?" said Matthew.

"Nay, but it's a bent place," continued Mr. Jackson. "How it dizzied
and dozzled, too! And what a fratch yon was! My word! but Ralph did
ding them over, both of them!"

"He favors his father, does Ralph," said Matthew.

"Ey! he's his father's awn git," chimed Reuben. "But that Joe Garth is
a merry-begot, I'll swear."

"Shaf! he hesn't a bit of