“Don’t come hankerin’ after me again,” cried Liza (rather unnecessarily) after his vanishing figure.

This outburst was at least serviceable in discharging all the

ill-nature from the girl’s breast; and when she had watched the blacksmith until he had disappeared, she replied to Rotha’s remonstrances as so much scarcely girl-like abuse by a burst of the heartiest girlish laughter.

* * * * *

There was much commotion at the Red Lion that night.  The “maister men” who had left the funeral procession at Watendlath made their way first to the village inn, intending to spend there the hours that must intervene before the return of the mourners to Shoulthwaite.  They had not been long seated over their pots when the premature arrival of John Jackson and some of the other dalesmen who had been “sett” on the way to Gosforth led to an explanation of the disaster that had occurred on the pass.  The consternation of the frequenters of the Red Lion, as of the citizens of Wythburn generally, was as great as their surprise.  Nothing so terrible had happened within their experience.  They had the old Cumbrian horror of an accident to the dead.  No prospect was dearer to their hope than that of a happy death, and no reflection was more comforting than that one day they would have a suitable burial.  Neither of these had Angus had.  A violent end, and no grave at all; nothing but this wild ride across the fells that might last for days or months.  There was surely something of Fate in it.

The dalesmen gathered about the fire at the Red Lion with the silence that comes of awe.

“A sad hap, this,” said Reuben Thwaite, lifting both hands.

“I reckon we must all turn out at the edge of the dawn to-morrow, and see what we can do to find old Betsy,” said Mr. Jackson.

Matthew Branthwaite’s sagest saws had failed him.  Such a contingency as this had never been foreseen by that dispenser of proverbs.  It had lifted him out of himself.  Matthew’s sturdy individualism might have taken the form of liberalism, or perhaps materialism, if it had appeared two centuries later; but in the period in which his years were cast, the art of keeping close to the ground had not been fully learned.  Matthew was filled with a sentiment which he neither knew nor attempted to define.  At least he was sure that the mare was not to be caught.  It was to be a dispensation somehow and someway that the horse should gallop over the hills with its dead burden to its back from year’s end to year’s end.  When Mr. Jackson suggested that they should start out in search of it, Matthew said,—­

“Nay, John, nowt of the sort.  Ye may gang ower the fell, but ye’ll git na Betsy.  It’s as I telt thee; it’s a Fate.  It’ll be a tale for iv’ry mother to flyte childer with.”

“The wind did come with a great bouze,” said John.  “It must have been the helm-wind, for sure; yet I cannot mind that I saw the helm-bar.  Never in my born days did I see a horse go off with such a burr.”