now they are seen, and now they are hidden; now
three of the six emerge near the top.

The excitement in the field is at full pitch. Liza is beside herself
with anxiety.

"It's Robbie--no, yes--no--egg him on, do; te-lick; te-smack."

One man has rounded the summit, and two others follow him
neck-and-neck. They are coming down, jumping, leaping, flying. They're
here, here, and it is--yes, it _is_ Robbie that leads!

"Well done! Splendid! Twelve minutes! Well done! Weel, weel, I oles do
say 'at ye hev a lang stroke o' the grund, Robbie," says Mattha.

"And what do _you_ say?" says Robbie, panting, and pulling on his coat
as he turns to Liza, who is trying to look absent and unconcerned.

"Ay! Did you speak to me? I say that perhaps you didn't go round the
'man' at all. You were always a bit of a cheat, you know."

"Then here goes for cheating you." Robbie had caught Liza about the
waist, and was drawing her to that rose-covered thicket. She found he
was holding her tight. He was monstrously strong. What ever _was_ the
good of trying to get away?

Two elderly women were amused spectators of Liza's ineffectual
struggles.

"I suppose you know they are to be wedded," said one.

"I suppose so," rejoined the other; "and I hear that Ralph is to let a
bit of land to Robbie; he has given him a horse, I'm told."

Matthew Branthwaite had returned to his station by Mrs. Ray's chair.

"Whear's Rotha?" says the old weaver.

"She said she would come and bring her father," said Willy from the
grass, where he still lay at his mother's feet.

"It was bad manishment, my lad, to let the lass gang off agen with Sim
to yon Fornside."

Mattha is speaking with an insinuating smile.

"Could ye not keep her here? Out upon tha for a good to nowt."

Willy makes no reply to the weaver's banter.

At that moment Rotha and her father are seen to enter the meadow by a
gate at the lower end.

Ralph steps forward and welcomes the new-comers.

Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking
and more composed. The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him
for their former injustice. He receives their conciliatory attentions
with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less
timid than before.

Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.

"A blithe heart maks a blooming look," says Mattha to the girl.
Rotha's face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as