"You're all right," Barbara replied. "See, I'll carry you through the mire, and then we'll jog along home. Great-granny will think we're both lost, so long out at this time o' year." "It's nearly morning, isn't it?" asked the girl, clinging to her sister with both hands. "Bless the bairn, no; not more than ten, at the latest." She carried the light form as easily as if it had been a child, and retraced her steps. By the time she had reached firmer ground, she was met by the inn-keeper and two men with lanterns. She saw Joel hovering behind them; when she looked for him again he was gone. She took the fainting girl to the Shepherd's Rest, and there spent the night, while a message was sent to Mistress Lynn to reassure her of their safety. CHAPTER XXIV WINTER Some days passed before Lucy was well enough to leave the Shepherd's Rest. She had got a severe chill from her exposure to the night air and the vapours of the marsh, but her nature was naturally buoyant, and the relief she experienced from a quiet conscience, now that she had cut herself off from Joel, enabled her to throw off that which might have been a serious illness. She did not see Joel again. Mally Ray was not communicative, and as no one ever met him in Cringel Forest or upon the fellside, rumour said that he had gone away. Peter came back in less than a fortnight. He had accepted the post in London--an important one that would use all his abilities--and from this time, until the end of the year, the days were filled with the making of arrangements for their removal. The mill-house was handed over to an uncle of Peter's, who had been born there, and Lucy and her husband came to Greystones to spend the last few days with Barbara and the great-grandmother. A thin fall of snow covered the ground, and, frost having set in with blue skies, a north wind blowing straight out of Thundergay, and clear sunlight, the eyes were dazzled by the whiteness of the dale. The beck was not yet frozen over, but it seemed to sing less clearly as it ran between its banks, where the grass blades were encased in crystal, and the bracken stalks, pricking through the snow, glittered with jewels. But the craggy edges of the fells were black as ebony, and dark patches showed here and there upon the pastures, where the sheep had been scraping for a precarious living. At sunset a gorgeous display of light illuminated the clear, cold world. Night lit up the intense blue of the northern sky with stars, while the west was filled with gold-dust, and the snow slopes were stained with red and saffron. Shadows lay in the hollows and clefts, and the long ridges looked violet; their savage outlines were never so noticeable as at this time of the year towards sundown.