used the stream for that peaceful purpose. He shut down the gate and tore
along through the ferns and tangled grass till he came to the sheep-pen,
where the bank was muddy and trampled. The prisoners were bleating drearily
and looking with longing eyes across to the other side, where those who had
suffered were now straying and cropping the short turf through the lights
and shadows of the orchard.

There was no other sign of life, except a broad hat with a brown ribbon
buffeted about in an eddy among the stones. The stream dipped now below the
hill, and the current, still racing fast with the impetus he had given it,
shot away amongst the hazel thickets that crowded close to the brink. He
was obliged to make a detour by the orchard and to come out below at the
"mill-head," a black, deep pool with an ugly ripple setting across it to
the head-gate. He saw something white clinging there, and ran round the
brink. It was the sodden fleece of the old ewe, which had been drifted
against the head-gate and held there to her death. Evesham, with a
sickening contraction of the heart, threw off his jacket for a plunge, when
Dorothy's voice called rather faintly from the willows on the opposite
bank.

"Don't jump! I'm here," she said. Evesham searched the willows and found
her seated in the sun, just beyond, half buried in a bed of ferns.

"I _shouldn't_ have called thee," she said shyly, as he sank pale and
panting beside her, "but thee looked--I thought thee was going to jump into
the mill-head!"

"I thought _you_ were there, Dorothy!"

"I was there quite long enough. Shep pulled me out; I was too tired to help