the sleeping Snowdrop and Keith the sleeping Nigger; while up on
the now desolate looking moorland, little Rudolph lay sleeping in the soft
brown earth beneath a clump of waving bracken. So short a life his had
been, so tragic and swift an end, but the hand-clasp of the sisters showed
that his little life had not been lived in vain.

CHAPTER X.

A few days later Mr. Carlyle was upon the moor again, but this time
everything was very different. There was no happy party, no picnic, no
sunshine nor soft breeze.

Instead, there lay about him one unbroken stretch of desolation, above him
a sky almost frightening in its aspect, with its banked-up masses of black
and copper clouds, over which the lightning ran like streams of liquid
fire.

He had been to visit a parishioner in a cottage at the farthest corner of
his parish, and while there the storm, which had been threatening all day,
had broken with a violence such as he had never known before. For nearly
two hours he had remained a prisoner in the little lonely house, which had
seemed merely a fragile toy, to be their only shelter from the floods of
rain, the deafening thunder, the flaming, darting lightning. Again and
again it had seemed as though the roof and walls must crack and fall about
them, or the rain come through and wash them from their shelter.

But those who had built the sturdy little house had built well, if
roughly, and the stone walls stood as though they were one solid block of
stone, the rain beat on the roof, but streamed off it, not a drop came
through. The little deep-set windows stared at the flashing lightning as
though with a patient unconcern, until at last the storm seemed to grow
tired of its sport, and swept away to find other victims.

In spite of the fact that the ground was like a sponge, that the little
cart-track, which was the only approach to the house, was filled up with
water, and that rain still fell, Mr. Carlyle made his way to the highest
point of the moor to look about him. It was not often he could see so
fine a sight, such a storm-swept sky, such curious lights and shadows.

Before the gusty wind the black clouds were rolling heavily away to the
west, where Abbot's Field lay. Mr. Carlyle's face grew anxious as he
looked at the dense mass of fiery blackness, and the heavy mist, which
seemed to envelop the place as with something evil. Every now and again
the black clouds appeared to open and show something of the