y stayed there,
lonesome as it was, and worse than that sometimes, for the children were
delicate, from want of good food most likely, and more than once the
poor mother had had a sad fright, thinking the baby, the frailest of
them all, would have died before the doctor could come to them. In the
summer-time they got on better, and, putting one thing with another,
they'd have been sorry to move.

'This winter promised to be a very hard one--all the wise folk had said
so, and they weren't often mistaken. There were signs they could read
better than people can nowadays, and Robin's heart was heavy. For if the
snow came his work might stop, or it might be almost impossible to go
backwards and forwards to it. There had been times when for days
together the moor could not be crossed. The boy was tired too, and
hungry, and he knew well there was not much of a meal waiting for him at
home. But at least there would be shelter and warmth, for there was no
lack of fuel ready to hand--same as we have it here. The wind whistled
and moaned, and felt as if it cut him. More than once he put his hands
up to his ears, just to feel like if they were still there and to shut
out the dreary sound for a moment. And one time after doing so, it
seemed to him that he heard a new sound mixing with the wind's wail. A
cry, with more in it than the wind was telling: for it sounded like the
cry of a living being. He hurried on, feeling a little frightened as
well as troubled----'

'Were there wolves about that place then, do you think, Nance?' Archie
interrupted eagerly. 'I have read in stories that they make a sort of a
cry--a baying cry. Perhaps the boy thought it was wolves?'

Nance shook her head.

'There's been no wolves in this country, Master Archie, since much
farther back than my grandmother's time. No, it wasn't that sort of a
cry. He heard it again and again. And each time it grew plainer and
plainer to him that it was some creature in trouble, and bit by bit it
came stronger upon him that he must seek it out whatever it was; that he
would be a cruel boy if he didn't. So he stood quite still to listen,
and through and above the wind he heard it still clearer, and then he
turned to the side where it seemed to come from, though it was hard to
make his way. But strange to say he hadn't gone many steps before he
felt he was on a path, and, stranger still, all of a sudden the moon
came out from behind the clouds, and he heard the cry almos