ried and tramping along
ever since he was born. That never had he done a single thing besides
lifting one heavy foot after another and planting each a bit farther
along that glaring road. The lanterns bobbed about outrageously, as if
they were trying to make him more dizzy still; and he scarcely knew when
they entered the now deserted village street and came to a halt at Miss
Maitland's gate.

There, he fancied, some women rushed out and grabbed Katharine, for he
dimly saw her borne away into the house where more dazzling lights were
gleaming. To avoid their bewildering rays he closed his eyes a moment;
and when he opened them again he found himself being carried swiftly
homeward in Moses' strong arms. He being carried! like one of Mis'
Turner's babies! More ignominy still. As if his having been coddled and
wept over by a strange little girl hadn't been mortifying enough. But
his own voice sounded queer to him as he tried to say, with
unstammering distinctness and dignity:

"You--needn't carry me n-n-none, Un-un-uncle Mose. What you doin' it
for? Put me d-d-down!"

The other two men had vanished, and there was nobody to hear Uncle
Moses' tender, troubled answer:

"Why, you poor little shaver, lie still. I don't know what's happened
ye, nor what sort of scrape you've been in. You an' that t'other one,
who's come to turn things topsyturvy. But betwixt the pair of you you've
nigh druv two old women crazy, and set the whole village a-teeter. Just
because I walked through it ringin' a bell an' cryin', like any
respectable constable would have done if I'd been one, and this 'most
makes me feel I am, just cryin': 'Child lost! Boy lost! Girl lost!' and
a couple the neighborin' men j'inin' in the search, with our lanterns
lit, sence we didn't know what sort of a hole or ditch you might fell
into--"

"F-F-Foxes' Gully!" exclaimed Montgomery, no longer resisting the relief
of walking on somebody else's feet, so to speak.

Uncle Moses stopped short, amazed and alarmed. "What? What's that you
say?"

"F-f-fell down it. An' she come to say she was s-s-s-sor-ry."

"And wasn't killed? Well now, and forever after, I'll believe in
guardeen angels! Fell down it an' wasn't killed! But what made ye?
Hadn't you any sense? Why, there's been more'n a half-dozen cattle
killed in that plaguey hollow sence I can remember. Yet you wasn't.
Well, I'm glad of it," and though this seemed a very mild expression of
his satisfaction, the sudden