“Then you suggest that Hayes is mistaken?” Osborn asked ironically.

“I don’t know if he’s mistaken or not,” said Grace, with a steady look.  “I know he’s greedy and unjust.  But there’s a thing you ought not to let him do.  Railton has lost forty sheep, that have strayed back to Swinset, and Hayes doesn’t mean to count them in the tally.”

Osborn’s face got red and he knitted his brows.  “I have tried to be patient; but this is too much!  Do you know more about managing an estate than a clever agent?  Or do you think I’m a fool and Hayes leads me like a child?  Anyhow, you are much too young to criticize my actions.  Let us have no more of it!  An unmarried girl is not entitled to opinions that clash with her parents’.”

Grace went out silently.  To know that she had failed hurt her pride, and it hurt worse to suspect that her father had got angry because he knew she was right.  Besides, she felt strangely alone; as she had often felt since she came home.  Gerald was careless and thought about nothing but his extravagant amusements; her mother’s main object was to avoid jars and smooth over awkward situations.  Then, she had household cares; money was scarce, and since Osborn hated self-denial, she must economize.  Grace could not tell her her troubles; but there was a way by which Railton might save his lease and Kit could help.  Getting a pencil and paper, she wrote him a very short note: 

“You must find Railton’s sheep.”

Then, knowing that she was rash, she went to look for the gardener’s boy, and sent him to Ashness.

CHAPTER VI

BLEATARN GHYLL

It was getting dark when Kit and Tom, the shepherd, stopped to rest behind a cairn on the summit of Swinset moor.  Close by, the two score sheep stood in a compact flock, with heads towards the panting dogs.  They were Herdwicks, a small, hardy breed that best withstands the rain and snow that sweep the high fells in the lambing season.  When he had lighted his pipe, Kit thoughtfully looked about.

On one side the barren moor, getting dim in the distance, rolled back to the edge of the low country.  Here and there patches of melting sleet gleamed a livid white among the withered ling, and storm-torn hummocks of peaty soil shone dark chocolate-brown.  These were the only touches of color in the dreary landscape, except for the streak of pale-yellow sky that glimmered above a long black ridge.  On the other side, a line of rugged fells with summits lost in snow clouds, rose dark and forbidding.  It was very cold and a biting wind swept the heath.

Kit was tired, for he had been on the moor since morning and had not eaten much.  It was an awkward matter to find the sheep, and then the men and dogs had some difficulty to keep the ewes moving, because the Herdwick never willingly leaves the neighborhood where it was born and will, if possible, return.  The lambs, now grown large and fat, gave less trouble, and when they sometimes stopped irresolutely while the ewes tried to break away Kit understood their hesitation.  Two instincts were at work:  it was natural to follow their dams, but Mireside was their native heath and they knew they were going to be taken home.