A stampede of huddled sheep, wildly scampering over the slaty shingle, emerged from the leaden mist that muffled the fell-top, and a shrill shepherd’s whistle broke the damp stillness of the air.  And presently a man’s figure appeared, following the sheep down the hillside.  He halted a moment to whistle curtly to his two dogs, who, laying back their ears, chased the sheep at top speed beyond the brow; then, his hands deep in his pockets, he strode vigorously forward.  A streak of white smoke from a toiling train was creeping silently across the distance:  the great, grey, desolate undulations of treeless country showed no other sign of life.

The sheep hurried in single file along a tiny track worn threadbare amid the brown, lumpy grass:  and, as the man came round the mountain’s shoulder, a narrow valley opened out beneath him—­a scanty patchwork of green fields, and, here and there, a whitewashed farm, flanked by a dark cluster of sheltering trees.

The man walked with a loose, swinging gait.  His figure was spare and angular:  he wore a battered, black felt hat and clumsy, iron-bound boots:  his clothes were dingy from long exposure to the weather.  He had close-set, insignificant eyes, much wrinkled, and stubbly eyebrows streaked with grey.  His mouth was close-shaven, and drawn by his abstraction into hard and taciturn lines; beneath his chin bristled an unkempt fringe of sandy-coloured hair.

When he reached the foot of the fell, the twilight was already blurring the distance.  The sheep scurried, with a noisy rustling, across a flat, swampy stretch, over-grown with rushes, while the dogs headed them towards a gap in a low, ragged wall built of loosely-heaped boulders.  The man swung the gate to after them, and waited, whistling peremptorily, recalling the dogs.  A moment later, the animals reappeared, cringing as they crawled through the bars of the gate.  He kicked out at them contemptuously, and mounting a stone stile a few yards further up the road, dropped into a narrow lane.

Presently, as he passed a row of lighted windows, he heard a voice call to him.  He stopped, and perceived a crooked, white-bearded figure, wearing clerical clothes, standing in the garden gateway.

‘Good-evening, Anthony.  A raw evening this.’

‘Ay, Mr. Blencarn, it is a bit frittish,’ he answered.  ’I’ve jest bin gittin’ a few lambs off t’fell.  I hope ye’re keepin’ fairly, an’ Miss Rosa too.’  He spoke briefly, with a loud, spontaneous cordiality.

’Thank ye, Anthony, thank ye.  Rosa’s down at the church, playing over the hymns for tomorrow.  How’s Mrs. Garstin?’

‘Nicely, thank ye, Mr. Blencarn.  She’s wonderful active, is mother.’

‘Well, good night to ye, Anthony,’ said the old man, clicking the gate.

‘Good night, Mr. Blencarn,’ he called back.