Mary Gifford was up long before sunrise the next morning, and, calling
Ambrose, she bid him come out with her and see if the shepherd had brought
in a lamb which had wandered away from the fold on the previous day. The
shepherd had been afraid to tell his mistress of the loss, and Mary had
promised to keep it from her till he had made yet another search; and then,
if indeed it was hopeless, she would try to soften Mistress Forrester's
anger against him.

'We may perchance meet him with the news that he has found the lamb, and
then there will be no need to let grannie know that it had been lost,' she
said.

It was a dull morning, and the clouds lay low in a leaden sky, while a mist
was hovering over the hills and blurring out the landscape.

The larks were soon lost to sight as they soared overhead, singing faintly
as they rose; the rooks gave prolonged and melancholy caws as they took
their early flight, and the cocks crowed querulously in the yard, while now
and then there was a pitiful bleat from the old ewe which had lost her
lamb.

In the intervals of sound, the stillness was more profound, and there was a
sense of oppression hanging over everything, which even Ambrose felt.

The moor stretched away in the haze, which gave the hillocks of gorse and
heather and the slight eminences of the open ground an unnatural size.

Every moment Mary hoped to see the shepherd's well-known figure looming
before her in the mist with the lamb in his arms, but no shepherd appeared.

'We must turn our steps back again, Ambrose. Perhaps the shepherd has gone
down into the valley, and it is chill and damp for you to be out longer;
when the sun gets up it will be warmer.'

She had scarcely spoken, when a figure appeared through the haze, like
every other object, looking unnaturally large.

'Quick, Ambrose,' she said, 'quick!' and, seizing the child's hand, she
began to run at her utmost speed along the sheep-path towards the stile
leading into the Manor grounds, near the farmyard.

The child looked behind to see what had frightened his mother.

'It's the big black man!' he said.

But Mary made no answer. She ran on, regardless of hillocks and big
stones--heedless of her steps, and thinking only of her pursuer.

Presently her foot caught in a tangle of heather, and she fell heavily, as
she was running at full speed, and struck her head against some sharp
stones lying in a heap at the edge of the track, which could hardly