"There's many a tall hill between us and it," continued the hind, "but what's a hill to the murrain? The cow jumped ower the moon onced, so I was told when I was a bairn. Nay, nay, if the black bane comes, it comes by the will o' God, and there's no more to be said about it." "I once saw the Need Fire lit," replied Barbara, "and the kye driven through the smoke." "What good did it do?" asked Tom. "The murrain never came to Boar Dale." "We'd better light it again," said the hind with a sceptical laugh. "But it's my belief that the murrain will go up the land till it reaches John o' Groats, and then zizzel out like a heath fire, leaving a black waste behind it. Nowt stops it but the sea." "You're not a true shepherd, Tom," said Barbara; "if you were you would hold fast to the faith of your forefathers and trust in your own good luck." They had reached Ketel's Parlour, and there was a grey light in the sky. The road into Girdlestone Pass ran round the top of the tarn, and on through a deep ravine, where the mist swirled and twirled, revealing one moment a patch of barren fell, then blotting it out, rolling away like clouds of dust before the feet of an army, pouring like smoke out of the clefts, and floating by like a veil torn into shreds. The hind unpenned the ewes, and they started along the misty track--the Robber's Rake it was called, because popular rumour believed that Ketel, the giant, had used it when he made incursions upon the more fertile regions behind Thundergay. Having rounded the tarn, they passed from twilight into the mist. The sky and the landscape were smudged out as though a wet hand had been drawn across the picture. The ewes moved slowly, and Barbara and her companion had not gone far, when they heard voices behind them, and she recognised the unmistakable tones of Timothy Hadwin and Peter Fleming. The colour came and went in her face, and her heart beat quickly. She felt mingled joy and fear--joy at the prospect of seeing Peter and talking to him, fear in case she might again betray herself, and lead him to disclose that which could not be the willing confession of so good a man. With her knowledge of her own great love had come a consciousness of power. She knew that she held Peter's weal or woe in the hollow of her hand. She paused and called through the mist. There was no reply for a moment. Timothy had grown deaf lately, and it seemed to Barbara that Peter, like herself, was determining upon his part. A call came back, startlingly clear, and two blurred figures moved upwards through the mist. "You've stolen a march upon us, Barbara," said Peter; "here's Timothy priding himself on his early rising, making sure he'd be first on the track." It was still too dark for them to see each other distinctly, but as they went along they talked--about the state of the weather, the roads, the prospect of a hard winter, all the trivial things which fill up the greater part of human intercourse.