Shadows shot up and sank with the flickering light. The clock peered down like a white-faced watcher, the dresser and the high-backed chairs were endowed with movement if not with life. Mistress Lynn laid her fingers upon the bridewain, as though she would reassure herself that it, too, was not a fantastic creation of firelight and shadow, but the solid piece of oak which she had brought with her to this house of Greystones, when she married David Lynn four generations ago. She listened for any sound in the sleeping house. But all was quiet. No stealthy steps crossed the rafters overhead, where Barbara and Lucy slept. The windows were shuttered and the doors were closed. Jan Straw, the shepherd, grown old and blind and deaf in her service, had a bed along with the hind above the cow-house. There was none to spy upon her, save the shadows and the firelight, and the bob-tailed sheep-dog, lying with his nose between his paws, dreaming of the flocks upon Thundergay. Mistress Lynn moved the candle nearer to her, and, taking from its hiding-place in the bed a large iron key, she leaned over and unlocked the middle cupboard of the bridewain. The light was full upon her face, revealing the fine network of lines about mouth and eyes, the parchment-like texture of the skin, and the whiteness of the hair, that escaped from under her frilled nightcap. Hers was a face bearing the imprint of age in every lineament, and of an abiding craftiness, which all the greatness of her nature had not managed to efface. The bridewain was apparently stocked with carded wool. This she pushed aside, however, and drawing out a bundle of silver spoons and a gold locket, she laid them on the bed. She counted the spoons one by one, and fingered the locket absently, as though the thoughts which it roused carried her mind back to some experience long past. The expression of her face changed from grim satisfaction to great weariness. Her lips moved, but the words were lost in the chatter of the beck. When Mistress Lynn was a girl, over three-quarters of a century ago, she had loved Joel Hart, a young gentleman of quality, whose home was not far off, and the locket had been a gift from him. But he married Mary Priestly, the heiress of Forest Hall, in Cringel Forest, and she married David Lynn, of Greystones. Neither marriage was very happy. Joel took part in the rebellion of 1745, and was shot, losing all his lands save the old house of Forest Hall, which his descendant owned and lived in at this time. But between the rebel's outlawry and his capture, what memories were crowded for the village girl he had once made love to! She had hidden him from pursuit among the wool-sacks, unknown to her dour, loyal husband. The tale had once been a favourite one for a winter night's telling. But now it had ceased to rouse enthusiasm in the dale. Only to this old woman was it a vital memory.