“What place is this?” said Robbie, when they had gone, stepping up to the gate and addressing the old man within.

“The judges’ lodgings surely,” replied the caretaker, lifting his eyes from his shovel with a look of surprise at the question.

“And the ’sizes, when are they on?”

“Next week; that’s when they begin.”

The ancient custodian was evidently not of a communicative temperament, and Robbie, who was in no humor for gossip, turned away.

It was of little use to remain longer.  All was over.  The worst had come to the worst.  He might as well turn towards home.  But how hot his forehead felt!  Could it have been that ducking his head in the river at Wythburn had caused it to burn like a furnace?

Robbie thought of Sim.  Why had he not met him in his long ramble through the town?  They might have gone home together.

At the corner of Botcher-gate and English Street there stood two shops, and as Robbie passed them the shopkeepers were engaged in an animated conversation on the event of the morning.  “I saw him go by with the little daft man; yes, I did.  I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so,” said one of the two men, imitating the piece of industry in question.

“Deary me!  What o’clock might that be?” asked the other.

“Well, as I say, I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so,” imitating the gesture again.  “I’d not sanded my floor, nor yet swept out my shop; so it might have been eight, and it might have been short of eight, and maybe it was somewhere between the three quarters and the hour—­that’s as I reckon it.”

“Deary me! deary me!” responded the other shopkeeper, whose blood was obviously curdling at the bare recital of these harrowing details.

Robbie walked on.  Eight o’clock!  Then he had been but two hours late—­two poor little hours!

Robbie reflected with vexation and bitterness on the many hours which must have been wasted or ill spent since he left Wythburn on Sunday.  He begrudged the time that he had given to rest and sleep.

Well, well, it was all over now; and out of Carlisle, through the Botcher-gate, and down the road up which he came, Robbie turned with weary feet.  The snow was thawing fast, and the meadows on every side lay green in the sunshine.  How full of grace they were!  How cruel in her very gladness Nature still seemed to be!

Never for an instant did Robbie lose the sense of a great calamity hanging above him, but a sort of stupefaction was creeping over him nevertheless.  He busied himself with reflections on every minor feature of the road.  Had he marked this beech before, or that oak?  Had he seen this gate on his way into Carlisle, or passed through that bar?  A boy on the road was driving a herd of sheep before him.  One drift of the sheep was marked with a red cross, and the other drift with a black patch.  Robbie counted the two drifts of sheep one by one, and wondered whose they were and where they were going.