. And one or another of them plucked him by the
sleeve and bade him come home with them, since the day was done, and
the battle would not quicken again, and the Westdalers had overmuch on
their hands to bear them any tidings till the morrow was a new day. At
first he heeded them nought, but in the end he turned on them with an
angry eye, yet spake mildly, and bade them get them home and eat and
sleep. "But leave me here," quoth he, "that I may watch a while lest
aught of new befalleth; and I will come to Wethermel when my heart
will suffer me." So they departed and left him; and there he stood,
till himseemed he had been there a long, long time. Night grew black
about him, and silence fell on the cloven plain of the Dale, save that
below him the speech of the eddies seemed to grow greater as other
voices failed. Then arose the wind, and went through the long grass
and talked in the crannies of the rock-wall of the Flood as the waters
spake below; and none came anear, nor might he hearken any foot of
man, only far-off voices from the steads of a barking dog or crowing
cock or lowing cow.

At last, when the night was beginning to change amidst the depth of
the darkness, himseemed he heard somewhat drawing anigh and coming up
the bent on the western side, and he wotted not but it might be the
unshod feed of men, and he lightly asked himself if the ghosts of the
dead made any sound with their feet as they trod the puddled earth
where a many had trodden before them; and so wild was his heart grown
now, that he thought it no great marvel if those that they had laid to
earth there should stand up and come before him in the night watches.
Then he nocked an arrow on his bow-string and handled his weapon, but
could not make up his mind to shoot lest the bow-draft should pierce
the quiet and rouse up inextinguishable shrieks and moans; and even
therewith, over those paddling feet, he seemed to hear a voice
beginning to cry, and he thought within himself: Now, now it is on the
way, and presently the air shall be full of it; and will it kindle
fire in the air?

But at that point of time the voice sounded louder and was in two or
three places, and even amidst its wildness the familiar sound smote to
his heart, for it was but the bleating of sheep, and now all the bent
over against him was alive with it. And of a sudden he was come to
himself and wotted what it was, that it was Elfhild's sheep, and that
they had been loosed or thrus