"Ma word! theer's summat wrong yonder!" cried Jim, and jerked the post-bags off his shoulder. "Coom on, Master! "--and he set off running toward the dog; while James Moore, himself excited now, followed with an agility that belied his years.
Some score yards from the lower edge of the spinney, upon the farther side of the ridge, a tiny beck babbled through its bed of peat. The two men, as they topped the rise, noticed a flock of black-faced mountain-sheep clustered in the dip 'twixt wood and stream. They stood martialled in close array, facing half toward the wood, half toward the newcomers, heads up, eyes glaring, handsome as sheep only look when scared.
On the crest of the ridge the two men halted beside Gyp. The postman stood with his head a little forward, listening intently.
Then he dropped in the heather like a dead man, pulling the other with him.
"Doon, mon!" he whispered, clutching at Gyp with his spare hand.
"What is't, Jim?" asked the Master, now thoroughly roused.
"Summat movin' i' th' wood," the other whispered, listening weasel-eared.
So they lay motionless for a while; but there came no sound from the copse.
"'Appen 'twas nowt," the postman at length allowed, peering cautiously about. "And yet I thowt--I dunno reetly what I thowt."Then, starting to his knees with a hoarse cry of terror: "Save us!
what's yon theer?"
Then for the first time the Master raised his head and noticed, lying in the gloom between them and the array of sheep, a still, white heap.
James Moore was a man of deeds, not words. "It's past waitin'!" he said, and sprang forward, his heart in his mouth.
The sheep stamped and shuffled as he came, and yet did not break.
"Ah, thanks be!" he cried, dropping beside the motionless body;"it's nob'but a sheep." As he spoke his hands wandered deftly over the carcase. "But what's this?" he called. "Stout' she was as me.
Look at her fleece-- crisp, close, strong; feel the flesh--finn as a rock. And ne'er a bone broke, ne're a scrat on her body a pin could mak'. As healthy as a mon--and yet dead as mutton!"Jim, still trembling from the horror of his fear, came up, and knelt beside his friend. "Ah, but there's bin devilry in this!" he said; 'Ireck'ned they sheep had bin badly skeared, and not so long agone.""Sheep-murder, sure enough!" the other answered. "No fox's doin'--a girt-grown twoshear as could 'maist knock a h'ox."Jim's hands travelled from the body to the dead creature's throat.
He screamed.
"By gob, Master! look 'ee theer!" He held his hand up in the moonlight, and it dripped red. "And warm yet! warm!""Tear some bracken, Jim!" ordered the other, "and set a-light. We mun see to this."The postman did as bid. For a moment the fern smouldercd and smoked, then the flame ran crackling along and shot up in the darkness, weirdly lighting the scene: to the right the low wood, a block of solid blackness against the sky; in front the wall of sheep, staring out of the gloom with biight eyes; and as centre-piece that still, white body, with the kneeling men and lurcher sniffing tentatively round.
