old Pendle.

When my work was done, I took up Periwinkle in my arms once more,
anxious to descend with her ere night fell. Already I was climbing
carefully down the slope, when, bless me, I remembered the Stranger,
and that I had left him without a word, he having gone clean out of my
mind, and I not having given him so much as a 'thank ye' at parting,
for all he had saved Periwinkle. But I think I must have gone clean
out of his mind too.

When I came back to him once more, there he was, still standing on the
very top of the hill, where I had left him. But now his head was
raised, the breeze lifted his hair. A kind of glory was on him. It
was light from the sunset sky, I thought at first; but it was brighter
far than that; for the sunset sky looked dull and dim beside it. His
eyes were roaming far and wide over the valleys and hills, even as my
eyes had wandered, when I was gathering my sheep. But his eyes
wandered further, and further far, till they reached the utmost line
of the Irish Sea to westward and covered all the country that lay
between. Then he turned himself around to the east again. A strong man
he was and a tall, and the glory was still on his face, though now he
had the sunset sky at his back. And he opened his mouth and spake.
Strange were his words:

'If but one man,' said he, 'but one man or woman, were raised by the
Lord's Power to stand and live in the same Spirit that the Apostles
and Prophets were in, he or she should shake all this country for
miles round.' Shake all the country! He had uttered a fearsome thing.
'Nay, Master Stranger, bethink ye,' I said, going up to him, 'how may
that be? What would happen to me and the sheep were these fells to
shake? Even now, though they stand steady, you have seen that wayward
lambs like Periwinkle will fall over and do themselves a mischief.' So
I spake, being but a witless lad. But my words might have been the
wind passing by him, so little he heeded them. I doubt if he even
heard or knew that I was there although I stood close at his side. For
again his eyes were resting on the Irish Sea, and on the country that
lay shining in the sun towards Furness, and on the wide, glistening
sands round Morecambe Bay. And then he turned himself round to the
north where lie the high mountains that can at times be seen, or
guessed, in the glow of the setting sun. Thus, as he gazed on all that
fair land, the Stranger spoke. Again he uttered strange words.

At first