Lights now flashed and twinkled from room to room, from house to stable and byre, and back again, as the frenzied, cursing farmer and his servants tumbled over each other in their haste to find the lost animal.  It is even said that one servant lass, in her ardour of search, was found looking under the bed in an upstairs room—­scarcely a likely grazing ground for any four-footed animal (unless perhaps it might be a night-mare).  But whether she expected to find there the lost quadruped, or the man guilty of its abduction, tradition says not.  At any rate, all that any of the searchers found—­and that not till broad daylight—­was the print of the good mare’s hoofs in some soft ground over which she had been ridden fast.  And no one had heard even so much as the smallest sound.

The day was yet young, and the breeze played gratefully cool on Dicky’s brow, as, fearless of pursuit, he rode contentedly along towards home a few hours later.  Skirting by Naworth, thence up by Tindale Tarn and down the burn to South Tyne, he had now come to the Fells a little to the south and east of Haltwhistle.  To him came a man on foot; and, said he: 

“Have ye seen onny stray cattle i’ your travels?  I’ve lost a yoke o’ fat bullocks.”

“What micht they be like?” asked Dicky innocently; for he had no difficulty in recognising the farmer from whom he had stolen the beasts, though the latter, having never set eyes on Dicky, had no idea of whom he was talking to.

“Oh,” said the man, “they were fine, muckle, fat beasts, red, baith o’ them, ane wi’ a bally face, an’ the tither wi’ its near horn sair turned in.”  And some other notable peculiarities the farmer mentioned, such as might strike a man skilled in cattle.

“We-el,” answered Dicky thoughtfully, “now that ye mention it, I believe I did see sic a pair, or twa very like them, no later agone than yesterday afternoon.  If I’m no mista’en, they’re rinnin’ on Maister ——­’s farm, no far frae Lanercost.”

“Man, ah’m that obleeged to ye.  But ah’m that deid tired wi’ walkin’, seekin’ them, ah canna gang that far,” said the farmer.  “That’s a gey guid mare ye’re ridin’.  Ye wadna be for sellin’ her, likely?”

“Oh aye, I’ll sell.  But she’s a braw mare; there’s no her like i’ the countryside, or in a’ Northumberland.  I’ll be wantin’ a braw price.”  Dicky was always ready for a deal, and in this instance of course it suited him very well to get rid of his steed.

So, after some chaffering, Dicky was promised his “braw price,” and he accompanied the farmer home to get the money.  A long way it was.  The farmer perforce walked, but Dicky, with native caution, rode, for, said he, in excuse to his companion: 

“I’m loth to part wi’ my good auld mare, for I’ve never owned her like.  Sae I’ll jist tak’ a last bit journey on her.”

In due course Dicky got his money, and food and drink, as much as he could swallow, into the bargain.  Then the farmer rode away for Lanercost; and Dicky, of course, remembered that he had business in a different part of the country.