e was chilled to the bone. And
then, on a brain where yet sang the fumes of brandy, it dawned that he
had absolutely no covering on him. Sleepily he felt with his hands this
way and that, up and down. To no purpose. His blankets must certainly
have fallen on the floor, but try as he might, no hand could he lay on
them. Slipping out of bed to grope for flint and steel wherewith to
strike a light, with soul-rending shock he ran his forehead full butt
against the open door of his room.

"De'il tak' it! What's this?" he bellowed. It was inconceivable that he
had forgotten to close and lock that door before getting into bed,
however much brandy he might have drunk overnight. What was the meaning
of it? At last a light, got from the smouldering kitchen fire, revealed
the hideous truth--his room was empty, the cherished mare gone! The door
(as he had found to his cost) stood wide open; along the floor were
carefully spread his blankets, and over them no doubt the mare had been
led out without making noise sufficient to awaken even a light sleeper,
let alone one whose potations had been deep as the farmer's.

Lights now flashed and twinkled from room to room, from house to stable
and byre, and back again, as the frenzied, cursing farmer and his
servants tumbled over each other in their haste to find the lost animal.
It is even said that one servant lass, in her ardour of search, was
found looking under the bed in an upstairs room--scarcely a likely
grazing ground for any four-footed animal (unless perhaps it might be a
night-mare). But whether she expected to find there the lost quadruped,
or the man guilty of its abduction, tradition says not. At any rate, all
that any of the searchers found--and that not till broad daylight--was
the print of the good mare's hoofs in some soft ground over which she
had been ridden fast. And no one had heard even so much as the smallest
sound.

The day was yet young, and the breeze played gratefully cool on Dicky's
brow, as, fearless of pursuit, he rode contentedly along towards home a
few hours later. Skirting by Naworth, thence up by Tindale Tarn and down
the burn to South Tyne, he had now come to the Fells a little to the
south and east of Haltwhistle. To him came a man on foot; and, said he:

"Have ye seen onny stray cattle i' your travels? I've lost a yoke o' fat
bullocks."

"What micht they be like?" asked Dicky innocently; for he had no
difficulty in recognising the farmer from whom