But at this David gave a wild whoop to frighten them, and when the hill whooped again, and the sisters began to run, he burst into laughter, and the strange spectral Ha! ha! ha! that ran along the inside of the hill as it were, completed their fear, and they stopped their ears with their hands and scuttled away down the hill. But now David seized them, and pulling their hands down from their heads, he said, ‘See here! what a nice place with the stones sticking out like seats. Why, it’s like a little house; let us stay and play a bit here.’ It was a little hollow in the hill side surrounded by projecting stones like an amphitheatre. The sisters were still afraid, but the sight of this little hollow with its seats of crag had such a charm for them that they promised David they would stop awhile, if he would promise not to shout and awake the echo. David readily promised this, and so they sat down; David proposed to keep a school, and cut a hazel wand from a bush and began to lord it over his two scholars in a very pompous manner. The two sisters pretended to be much afraid, and to read very diligently on pieces of flat stone which they had picked up. And then David became a serjeant and was drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces of fern into their hair for cockades. And then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was the shepherd; and he was catching his flock and going to shear them, and made so much noise that Jane cried, ‘Hold! there’s the echo mocking us.’ At this they all were still. But David said, ‘Pho! never mind the echo; I must shear my sheep:’ but just as he was seizing little Nancy to pretend to shear her with a piece of stick, Jane cried out, ‘Look! look! how black it is coming down the valley there! There’s going to be a dreadful starm; let us hurry hom!’ David and Nancy both looked up, and agreed to run as fast down the hill as they could. But the next moment the driving storm swept over the hill, and the whole valley was hid in it. The three children still hurried on, but it became quite dark, and they soon lost the track, and were tossed about by the wind, so that they had difficulty to keep on their legs. Little Nancy began to cry, and the three taking hold of each other endeavoured in silence to make their way homewards. But presently they all stumbled over a large stone, and fell some distance down the hill. They were not hurt, but much frightened, for they now remembered the precipices, and were afraid every minute of going over them. They now strove to find the track by going up again, but they could not find it anywhere. Sometimes they went upwards till they thought they were quite too far, and then they went downwards till they were completely bewildered; and then, like the Babes in the Wood, ‘They sate them down and cried.’