parents were at home, but they had some sense of relief in the
thought that they could do whatever they liked. A more sympathetic
historian might say, and I am nowise inclined to contradict him,
that it was only the reaction from the pain of parting, and the
instinct to make the best of their loneliness. However it was, the
elder girls resolved on a walk to the village, to see what might be
seen, and in particular the young woman at the shop, of whom they
had heard their brother and Mr. Sercombe speak with admiration,
qualified with the remark that she was so proper they could hardly
get a civil word out of her. She was in fact too scrupulously polite
for their taste.

It was a bright, pleasant, frosty morning, perfectly still, with an
air like wine. The harvest had vanished from the fields. The sun
shone on millions of tiny dew-suns, threaded on forsaken
spider-webs. A few small, white, frozen clouds flecked the sky. The
purple heather was not yet gone, and not any snow had yet fallen in
the valley. The burn was large, for there had been a good deal of
rain, but it was not much darker than its usual brown of
smoke-crystal. They tripped gaily along. If they had little
spiritual, they had much innocent animal life, which no great
disappointments or keen twinges of conscience had yet damped. They
were hut human kittens--and not of the finest breed.

As they crossed the root of the spur, and looked down on the autumn
fields to the east of it, they spied something going on which they
did not understand. Stopping, and gazing more intently, they beheld
what seemed a contest between man and beast, but its nature they
could not yet distinguish. Gradually it grew plain that two of the
cattle of the country, wild and shaggy, were rebelling against