sky — dark and motionless as Napoleon at St. 

 Helena. 



A horrible conviction darted through Oak. 

 With a sensation of bodily faintness he advanced : 

 at one point the rails were broken through, and 

 there he saw the footprints of his ewes. The dog 

 came up, licked his hand, and made signs im- 

 plying that he expected some great reward for 

 signal services rendered. Oak looked over the 

 precipice. The ewes lay dead and dying at its 

 foot — a heap of two hundred carcases, representing 

 in their condition just now at least two hundred 

 more. 



As far as could be learnt it appeared that the 

 poor young dog, still under the impression that 

 since he was kept for running after sheep, the 

 more he ran after them the better, had at the end 

 of his meal off the dead lamb, which may have 

 given him additional energy and spirits, collected 

 all the ewes into a corner, driven the timid 

 creatures through the hedge, across the upper 

 field, and by main force of worrying had given 

 them momentum enough to break down a portion 

 of the rotten railing, and so hurled them over the 

 edge. 



George's son had done his work so thoroughly 

 that he was considered too good a workman to 

 live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at 



197 



