with the rifle pointing downwards; the maids retreated beneath their
blankets, and I (too frightened to stay behind) followed closely,
armed with an Indian boar-spear. F--- flung the hall door wide
open, and called out, "Who's there?" but no one answered. The
silence was intense, and so was the cold; therefore we returned
speedily indoors to consult. "It must be at the back door," I
urged; adding, "that is the short cut down the valley, where
bushrangers would be most likely to come." "Bushrangers, you silly
child!" laughed F---. "It's most likely a belated swagger, or else
somebody who is playing us a trick." However as he spoke a
succession of fierce and loud knocks resounded through the whole
house. "It must be at the kitchen door," F--- said. "Come along,
and stand well behind me when I open the door."

But we never opened the door; for on our way through the kitchen,
with its high-pitched and unceiled roof,--a very cavern for echoes,--
we discovered the source of the noise, and of our fright. Within a
large wooden packing-case lay a poor little lamb, and its dying
throes had wakened us all up, as it kicked expiring kicks violently
against the side of the box. It was my doing bringing it indoors,
for I never _could_ find it in my heart to leave a lamb out on the
hills if we came across a dead ewe with her baby bleating desolately
and running round her body. F--- always said, "You cannot rear a
merino lamb indoors; the poor little thing will only die all the
same in a day or two;" and then I am sorry to say he added in an
unfeeling manner, "They are not worth much now," as if that could
make any difference! I had brought this, as I had brought scores of
others, home in my arms from a long distance off; fed it out of a
baby's bottle, rubbed it dry, and put it to sleep in a warm bed of
hay at the bottom of this very box. They had all died quietly,