ine-house, Tom?" he shouted.

"I dinna ken," said the shepherd. "Mayhappen two miles. Ewes is
travelling better; t'lambs is leading them."

Kit agreed, and they pushed on through the snow. After a time, the ground
got steeper, and when they crossed the noisy beck and scrambled up a
shaly bank, Kit was glad to see a broken wall loom among the tossing
flakes. This was the shaft-house of an abandoned mine, and there was a
sheep-fold, built with pulled-down material, close by. He shouted and
waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones. The Herdwicks
were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact,
struggling flock. Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when
the dogs had driven the sheep into the fold.

"I dinna ken if snow'll tak' off or not, but it's early yet and we must
have a rest before we try ghyll," he said.

They went into the shaft-house and Kit struck a match. One end of the
building had been pulled down and the snow blew in through holes in the
roof, but a pile of dry fern filled a corner and rotten beams lay
about. With some trouble, they lighted a fire and, sitting down close
by, took out the food they had brought. The wind screamed about the
ruined walls, the smoke eddied round them, and now and then a shower of
snow fell on their heads, but they had some shelter and could, if
forced, wait for morning.

"Miss Osborn's a bonny lass and kind; but I reckon she couldn't talk her
father round," Tom presently remarked.

"No," said Kit. "I believe she tried."

"Favors her mother," Tom resumed. "Mrs. Osborn's heart is good, but at
Tarnside women dinna count. It's a kind o' pity, because t' Osborn
menfolk are lakers and always was."

A _laker_ is a lounging pleasure-seeker and Kit admitted that the remark
was justified.

"I sometimes think Osborn means well," he said.

"Mayhappen! For aw his ordering folks aboot, he's wake; like his father,
I mind him weel. Might mak' a fair landlord if he was letten and had t'
money; but oad Hayes is grasping and always at his tail."

"The rent-roll's good. The estate could be managed well."

"There's t' mortgages and Osborn canna keep money. When he has it he must
spend. There would be nea poor landlord's, if I had my way. I'd let them
putten rents up if they had money and spent it on the land. Low rent
means poor farming."

Kit knew this was true on the Tarnside estate. Dykes that had kept the
floods off the meadows wer