,' impatiently cried Amos.

I'll tak' a dog's word agen thine ony day, owd lad,' said Moses.

'Well, thaa's no need to be so fond o' th' dog. It once welly
worried thi dog, and thee into th' bargain.'

'Yi; it's bin a bruiser i' id time, an' no mistak'; but it's
turned o'er a new leaf naa--and it's noan so far off th' child;'
and Malachi, too, commenced to encourage it in its search.

'It looks to me as th' child's getten up theer somehaa;' and so
saying, Moses pointed to the ledge of rock where Jenny Greenteeth
was said to slumber through the winter's cold.

'What mut th' child ged up theer for?' asked Amos. 'Thaa talks
like a chap as never hed no childer.'

At this rebuff Moses was silent; for not only was he a childless
man, but until the day he saved the very child they were now
seeking from the Green Fold Lodge, children had been nothing to
him. Now, however, he had learned to love them, and none better
than the little lost offspring of Oliver o' Deaf Martha's.

While the two men were wrangling, Mr. Penrose stepped aside and
commenced the climb towards the ledge. The snow lay white and
undisturbed on the shelving surface, and there was no sign of
recent movements. Looking round, he discovered the mouth of the
recess. There it stood, black and forbidding. In another moment
the minister stooped down and looked in; but all was dark and
silent, nor did he care to go further along what to him was an
unknown way.

'Have any of you a light?' asked he of the men below; and Malachi
handed him his collier's candle and matches, with which he
commenced to penetrate the gloom.

It was a small cavernous opening out of which, in years past, men
had quarried stone. Damp dripped from the roof, and ran down its
seamed and discoloured sides. Autumn leaves, swept there by the
wind, strewed its uneven floor, and lay in heaps against the
jutting angles. A thin line of snow had drifted in through the
mouth, and ran like a river of light along the gloomy entrance, to
lose itself in the recesses beyond.

The feeble flicker of the candle which Mr. Penrose held in his
hand flung hideous shadows, and lighted up the cave dimly enough
to make it more eerie and grotesque. The minister had not searched
long before he was startled by a cry--a faint and childish cry:

'Arto Jenny Greenteeth?'

'No, my boy; I'm Mr. Penrose.'

'It's noan th' parson aw want; aw want th' fairy.'

And then the chilled and startled boy was carried down