October brought frost, followed by heavy rains, and the moors were enshrouded in mist. But the farmers, eager that the enwalling should be finished before the first snows came, allowed their men no respite. With coarse sacking over their shoulders to ward off the worst of the rain, they laboriously plied their task, but the songs and jests and laughter which had accompanied their work in summer gave way to gloomy silence. They rarely met Peregrine now, though they often saw him tending his flocks in the distance, and noticed that his shoulders, which six months before had been erect, were now drooping heavily forward and that he walked with tottering steps. They reported this in the farm-houses where they were lodging, and two of the farmers wives, who in happier days had been on friendly terms with Peregrine, paid a visit to the old man's cottage in order to try to induce him to come down to the dale for the winter or go and stay with one of his sons in the towns. The shepherd received them with formal courtesy, but would not listen to their proposal. "Nay," he said, "I'll bide on t' moors; t' moors are gooid enif to dee on." Early in November a party of wallers were disturbed at their work by the persistent barking of a dog. Thinking that the animal was caught in a snare, they followed the sound, with the intention of setting it free. On reaching the spot they found it was Rover, standing over the prostrate figure of the shepherd. The old man had fainted and was lying in the heather. The wallers brought water in their hats and, dashing it in his face restored him to consciousness. He was, however, too weak to talk, so they carried him in their arms to his cottage and laid him on his bed while one of them raced down the hill to summon the nearest doctor. A few hours later fever set in, and the patient became delirious. A tumult of ideas was surging through his brain, and found vent in broken speech, which struck awe to the wallers' hearts as they bent over his bed. "_Ein-tein-tethera-methera-pimp_; _awfus-dawfus-deefus-dumfus-dik_." The old man was counting his sheep, using the ancient Gaelic numerals from one to ten, which had been handed down from one shepherd to another from time immemorial. And as he called out the numbers his hand fumbled among the bed-clothes as though he were searching for the notches on his shepherd's crook.