ore was lying with his face pressed downward
that he might not see.

Once he raised himself on his arms; his eyes were shut and face
uplifted, like a blind man praying. He passed a weary hand across his
brow; his head dropped again; and he moaned and moaned like a man in
everlasting pain.

Then the darkness lifted a moment, and he stole a furtive glance, like a
murderer's at the gallows-tree, at the scene in front.

It was no dream; clear and cruel in the moonlight the humpbacked
boulder; the dead sheep; and that gray figure, beautiful, motionless,
damned for all eternity.

The Master turned his face and looked at Andrew, a dumb, pitiful
entreaty in his eyes; but in the boy's white, horror-stricken
countenance was no comfort. Then his head lolled down again, and the
strong man was whimpering.

"He! he! he! 'Scuse ma laffin', Mr. Moore--he! he! he!"

A little man, all wet and shrunk, sat hunching on a mound above them,
rocking his shrivelled form to and fro in the agony of his merriment.

"Ye raskil--he! he! Ye rogue--he! he!" and he shook his fist waggishly
at the unconscious gray dog. "I owe ye anither grudge for this--ye've
anteecipated me"--and he leant back and shook this way and that in
convulsive mirth.

The man below him rose heavily to his feet, and tumbled toward the
mocker, his great figure swaying from side to side as though in blind
delirium, moaning still as he went. And there was that on his face which
no man can mistake. Boy that he was, Andrew knew it.

"Feyther! feyther! do'ee not!" he pleaded, running after his father and
laying impotent hands on him.

But the strong man shook him off like a fly, and rolled on, swaying and
groaning, with that awful expression plain to see in the moonlight.

In front the little man squatted in the rain, bowed double still; and
took no thought to flee.

"Come on, James Moore! Come on!" he laughed, malignant joy in his voice;
and something gleamed bright in his right hand, and was hid again. "I've
bin waitin' this a weary while noo. Come on!"

Then had there been done something worse than sheep-murder in the
dreadful lonesomeness of the Devil's Bowl upon that night; but of
a sudden, there sounded the splash of a man's foot, falling heavily
behind; a hand like a falling tree smote the Master on the shoulder; and
a voice roared above the noise of the storm:

"Mr. Moore! Look, man! look!"

The Master tried to shake off that detaining grasp; but it pinned h