He jumped out of bed, dressed, tore down the 

 lane through a foggy dawn, and ascended the 

 hill. The forward ewes were kept apart from 

 those among which the fall of lambs would be 

 later, there being two hundred of the latter class 

 in Gabriel's flock. These two hundred seemed to 

 have absolutely vanished from the hill. There 

 were the fifty with their lambs, enclosed at the 

 other end as he had left them, but the rest, 

 forming the bulk of the flock, were nowhere. 

 Gabriel called at the top of his voice the 

 shepherd's call. 



" Ovey, ovey, ovey ! " 



Not a single bleat. He went to the hedge — a 

 gap had been broken through it, and in the gap 

 were the footprints of the sheep. Rather surprised 

 to find them break fence at this season, yet 

 putting it down instantly to their great fondness 

 for ivy in winter time, of which a great deal grew 

 in the plantation, he followed through the hedge. 

 They were not in the plantation. He called 

 again : the valleys and farthest hills resounded as 

 when the sailors invoked the lost Hylas on the 

 Mysian shore ; but no sheep. He passed through 

 the trees and along the ridge of the hill. On the 

 extreme summit, where the ends of the two con- 

 verging hedges of which we have spoken were 

 stopped short by meeting the brow of the chalk- 

 pit, he saw the younger dog standing against the 



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