King, the grandfather, relied strongly upon her
judgment. She brought up her son in decent living and the fear of God.

In the year when Andrew was nineteen he was a tall, handsome lad, and
a shepherd, following the profession, as he was to inherit the estate,
of his forebears. One April night in that year he and his grandfather,
the pair of them with a collie, lay out on the fell-side together.
Lambing is late in Redesdale, the spring comes late; April is often a
month of snow.

They had a fire and their cloaks; the ground was dry, and they lay
upon it under a clear sky strewn with stars. At midnight George King,
the grandfather, was asleep, but Andrew was broad awake. He heard the
flock (which he could not see) sweep by him like a storm, the
bell-wether leading, and as they went up the hill the wind began to
blow, a long, steady, following blast. The collie on his feet, ears
set flat on his head, shuddering with excitement, whined for orders.
Andrew, after waking with difficulty his grandfather, was told to go
up and head them off. He sent the dog one way--off in a flash, he
never returned that night--and himself went another. He was not seen
again for two days. To be exact, he set out at midnight on Thursday
the 12th April, and did not return to Dryhope until eleven o'clock of
the morning of Saturday the 14th. The sheep, I may say here, came back
by themselves on the 13th, the intervening day.

That night of the 12th April is still commemorated in Dryhope as one
of unexampled spring storm, just as a certain October night of the
next year stands yet as the standard of comparison for all equinoctial
gales. The April storm, we hear, was very short and had several
peculiar features. It arose out of a clear sky, blew up a snow-cloud
which did no more than powder the hills, and then continued to blow
furiously out of a clear sky. It was steady but inconceivably strong
while it lasted; the force and pressure of the wind did not vary until
just the end. It came from the south-east, which is the rainy quarter
in Northumberland, but without rain. It blew hard from midnight, until
three o'clock in the morning, and then, for half an hour, a hurricane.
The valley and hamlet escaped as by a miracle. Mr. Robson, the vicar,
awakened by it, heard the wind like thunder overhead and went out of
doors to observe it. He went out into a still, mild air coming from
the north-west, and still heard it roaring like a mad thing high above