Snow-lines are sketched along the fences of the fells, but this is all that remains. Everything out of doors testifies to the coming of spring, and green grass-shoots are everywhere. The foaming fell "becks" sparkle in the sun, and the sheep are sprinkled over the crags. A breadth of blue is overhead, and the feeding flock is steadily turned towards the skyline. This is the first token of the short summer, and all the sheep on all the hills rejoice. It is at this season that the shepherds most keenly scan their flocks and note the ravages of winter. By the torrent side, by the leas of the boulders, along the rock ledges--everywhere is dotted a white fleece. It was upon such an occasion, the snow having melted, that a shepherd on his rounds came suddenly upon a dog which emerged from a bracken- and boulder-strewn brae. The poor creature was reduced almost to a skeleton, and upon the man following, it whined and ran forward. It stopped over a weathered corpse--the body of young Gough, beside which it had kept watch and ward for months. It would allow no one to come near, though it was noticed that its collar bore a name--the name of its master, and that which established his identity. In the absence of the dog on its food forays the hill foxes, ravens, and buzzards had done their carnage on the body. This was taken by a party of yeomen and shepherds and interred in the burial ground of the Friends' Meeting House at Tirrel. Both Scott and Wordsworth have fittingly commemorated the incident, though the lines are too well known to be quoted here. CHAPTER XIII. WORKERS IN WOODCRAFT. I.