his hair unkempt. He was stooping about the ground gathering
flints dropped through, and a small trail of them marked his passage
over the rank grass.

Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand on
Ambrose's wild head, saying his name again. And at this his brother
looked up and eyed him childishly, and said "Who is Ambrose?" And then
the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he saw with horror that
Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, and the sight of his
neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb turned away and sobbed.
But Ambrose with a little random laugh continued to drop flints in his
bottomless bucket. And no word of Hobb's could win him from that place.

Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his
hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his
house, the nature of which was past his brothers' telling, and far
beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, "I have done the best I
could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since
the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, keeping
safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now there is
none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must follow the way
they went, and do better than they at the end of it. And if I fail--as
how should I succeed where they have not?--and if like them I too must
suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, let it be so, and I shall
at least fare as they have fared, and we will share an equal fate.
Though what I have to lose I know not, to match their bright and noble
qualities."

Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh into
his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as possible,
and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only one who could
in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of the Burgh as he
was, and went where his feet took him. He had not been walking
half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap from his head,
and blew it into the very middle of a pond.

Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather
deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for,
and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm,
like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that
dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the
pond, and he caught the cap