“Wait two years for me.”

“Oh, not that.  I don’t mean that.”

“That or nothing.  In two years, I’ll be as good a gentleman as he is.  I’m not risking my life in that church, for nothing.  If you have one grain of pity or esteem for me, wait two years.”

“Incurable!” she murmured:  but he was gone.

Coventry heard the prayer.  That was loud and earnest enough.  Her reply he could not bear.

She rejoined him, and the torch came rapidly forward.

It was carried by a lass, with her gown pinned nearly to her knees, and displaying grand and powerful limbs; she was crying, like the tenderest woman, and striding through the snow, like a young giant.

When the snow first came down, Mr. Raby merely ordered large fires to be lighted and fed in his guests’ bedrooms; he feared nothing worse for them than a good wetting.

When dinner-time came, without them, he began to be anxious, and sent a servant to the little public-house, to inquire if they were there.

The servant had to walk through the snow, and had been gone about an hour, and Mr. Raby was walking nervously up and down the hall, when Jael Dence burst in at the front door, as white as a sheet, and gasped out in his face:  “The Gabriel hounds!!”

Raby ran out directly, and sure enough, that strange pack were passing in full cry over the very house.  It was appalling.  He was dumb with awe for a moment.  Then he darted into the kitchen and ordered them to ring the great alarm-bell incessantly; then into the yard, and sent messengers to the village, and to all his tenants, and in about an hour there were fifty torches, and as many sheep-bells, directed upon Cairnhope hill; and, as men and boys came in from every quarter, to know why Raby’s great alarm-bell was ringing, they were armed with torches and sent up Cairnhope.

At last the servant returned from “The Colley Dog,” with the alarming tidings that Miss Carden and Mr. Coventry had gone up the hill, and never returned.  This, however, was hardly news.  The Gabriel hounds always ran before calamity.

At about eleven o’clock, there being still no news of them, Jael Dence came to Mr. Raby wringing her hands.  “Why do all the men go east for them?”

“Because they are on the east side.”

“How can ye tell that?  They have lost their way.”

“I am afraid so,” groaned Raby.

“Then why do you send all the men as if they hadn’t lost their way?  East side of Cairnhope! why that is where they ought to be, but it is not where they are, man.”

“You are a good girl, and I’m a fool,” cried Raby.  “Whoever comes in after this, I’ll send them up by the old church.”

“Give me a torch, and I’ll run myself.”

“Ay, do, and I’ll put on my boots, and after you.”

Then Jael got a torch, and kilted her gown to her knees, and went striding through the snow with desperate vigor, crying as she went, for her fear was great and her hope was small, from the moment she heard the Gabriel hounds.