"Yes!" I mumbled. "Yes!" "But are you brave enough to go and see what it is? Dare you go--alone?" "No!" I gasped. "No--I should--die--" My teeth snapped shut upon the word and I began to creep forward, the ash stick clutched in shaking hand, my eyes glaring in horrified expectancy. Foot by foot I forced my shivering body forward into the denser shadows of the underbrush, on and on in such agony of fear that the sweat poured from me, for now this frightful struggling was louder and more menacing; therefore, lest I should blench and turn back, I ran wildly forward until, all at once, I stopped at sight of a shapeless something, a dim horror that started and wallowed, gasping, upon the ground before me; then, as I stared, the thing bleated feebly, and I knew it for a sheep and, coming nearer, saw the poor animal lay upon its back, kicking and struggling vainly to regain its feet. My revulsion of feeling was so great that a faintness seized me and I leaned half-swooning against a tree. And in this moment Diana's arm was about me and her voice in my ear. "Oh, but that was brave, Peregrine--I never thought you'd go! Now help me to get the poor thing to her feet." So between us we contrived to set the sheep upon its legs and watched it amble feebly away. Then, side by side, we came out of the wood where we might behold the stars. "Diana," said I, with my gaze uplifted to their glory, "did you know it was only a sheep?" "Of course!" "And I am a little braver than you expected?" "Yes, Peregrine." "Then--suppose you take my hand again!" CHAPTER XXII DESCRIBING THE HOSPITALITY OF ONE JERRY JARVIS A TINKER We stood upon a hill beneath an orbed moon whose splendour dimmed the stars; below us lay a mystery of sombre woods with a prospect of hill and dale beyond, and never a sound to disturb the all-pervading stillness save the soft, bubbling notes of a nightjar and the distant murmur of the brook that flowed in the valley at our feet, here leaping in glory, there gliding,--a smooth and placid mirror to Dian's beauty, a brook that wound amid light and shadow until it lost itself in the gloom of trees thick-clustered about a little hamlet that slept in the shadow of hoary church tower. Thus as we descended the hill, I walked reverently, my soul upraised in chaste and fervent ecstasy. However, this fine, poetical rhapsody was banished, suddenly and most unpleasantly, by my companion who, setting fingers to mouth, emitted a shrill whistle,--three ear-piercing blasts that shattered the night's holy calm and startled me to indignant protest. "Heavens, Diana!" I exclaimed, "why do that? It was desecration!" "You'll know if you listen, Peregrine!" As she spoke there came an answering whistle from the woods before us. "It's Jerry!" she nodded. "It's Jerry Jarvis--hark, he be coming to meet me!" "Then he knows it is you?"