On Gamblesby Fell he drew rein. It was a still grey day; there was scarcely a sound on the breeze; one could hear the call of a shepherd, the bark of his dog, and, far away, the drumming sound of driven sheep. The master of millions sat with the reins hanging loose upon his horse’s neck, gazing at the scene before him. Then, touching his horse with the spur, he resumed his way, making towards the plain and home. He had only come down from London the day before, and he intended returning on the morrow; he had spent the day in going over the estate, and he intended passing the evening in consultation with his land-agent, Gristlethwaite. Two miles from home he took a short cut, and struck across the fields into a very strange and desolate place. Here, in a large meadow, stands Long Meg, and here recline her daughters. They are a weird group, even by daylight, more so just now, for the dusk was beginning to fall. Long Meg is just a huge stone, standing erect and lonely, the relic of some forgotten religion; her daughters, sixty or more, lie before her in a circle. They are boulders, seen by daylight; but in the dusk, they are anything your fancy wills. Hooded women, for choice, in all positions; some crouched as if in prayer, some recumbent, some erect. He was passing these things, which he had known from his childhood, when, amidst them, and almost like one of them, he perceived a form seated on a camp stool. It was the form of a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Now, what presentiment or curiosity stirred the mind of Sir Anthony Gyde will never be known, but on perceiving this figure he reined in, then turned his horse and rode towards it. The man had been sketching, evidently, for a small easel stood before him, but he seemed to have forgotten his work, forgotten the dusk that had overtaken him, forgotten everything, in some reverie into which he had fallen. He must have heard the horse’s hoofs approaching, but he did not turn. “You are sketching the stones?” said Sir Anthony, drawing rein a few feet away. The man on the camp stool turned and looked from under the brim of his hat at the man on the horse. There was just enough light to see his face. It was a face that no man or woman would ever forget, once having seen. It was not ugly, but it was thin, cadaverous, and under the shadow of the hat brim, in some mysterious way dreadful. Now Sir Anthony Gyde was a man who feared neither ghost nor devil, but when his eyes met the eyes of this man his face fell away, and he sat in his saddle like a man who has suddenly been stricken by age. He sat for a moment like this, then, wheeling his horse, he put spurs to it and fled, as a man flies for his life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI HE struck into the high road.