some tree in a lonely wood. By night he kept his special part of the
marches. Still the Keeper of Redesdale was Percival Reed. Todlaw Mill,
in ruins long ago, was his favourite haunt, and there, as the decent
folk of the valley went on the Sabbath to the meeting-house at Birdhope
Cragg, they often saw him, a dreary sight for human eyes, patiently
awaiting his freedom. The men would uncover their heads and bow as they
passed, and the Keeper of Redesdale, courteous in the spirit as in the
body, would punctiliously return their salutations.

Thus did the years wear on until the appointed days were fulfilled, and
the Rede Valley knew its Keeper no more. On the last day of the time
fixed by him, the skeely man was thatching a cottage at the Woollaw.
Suddenly he felt something touch him, as though the wing of a bird had
brushed by. He came down the ladder on which he stood, and it seemed as
though the bird's feathers had brushed against his heart, and had come
from a place where the cold and ice are not cold and ice as mortals know
them, for "he was seized," says the chronicler, "with a cold trembling."
Some power, too strong for his own skill to combat, had laid hold on
him, and shivering, still shivering, he fell into the hands of Death.

Such was the passing of Percival Reed, Keeper of Redesdale, who took
with him, when at length he relinquished his charge, a humble henchman,
a hind of the Rede Valley.

DANDY JIM THE PACKMAN

It was the back end of the year. The crops were all in, and but little
was left of the harvest moon that had seen the Kirn safely won on the
farms up "Ousenam" Water. A disjaskit creature she looked as the wind
drove a scud of dark cloud across her pale face, or when she peered over
the black bank below her, only to be hidden once more by an angry drift
of rain. It was no night for lonely wayfarers. Oxnam and Teviot were
both in spate, and their moan could be heard when the wind rested for a
little and allowed the fir trees to be still. Only for very short
intervals, however, did the tireless wind cease, and always, after a
short respite, the trees were attacked again, and made to beck and bow
their dark heads like the nodding plumes of a hearse. The road from
Crailing was in places dour with mud, heavy-rutted by harvest carts,
with ever and anon a great puddle that stretched across from ditch to
ditch. But dismal or not dismal, the night had apparently no evil effect
on the spirits of th