e three who had suffered in the least from the
fall was Anne, and she was only conscious of a severe shaking which had
half stupefied her for the time. The wheel lay flat in the road, so that
there was no possibility of driving further in their present plight. They
looked around for help. The only friendly object near was a lonely
cottage, from its situation evidently the home of a shepherd.

The horse was unharnessed and tied to the back of the gig, and the three
women went across to the house. On getting close they found that the
shutters of all the lower windows were closed, but on trying the door it
opened to the hand. Nobody was within; the house appeared to have been
abandoned in some confusion, and the probability was that the shepherd
had fled on hearing the alarm. Anne now said that she felt the effects
of her fall too severely to be able to go any further just then, and it
was agreed that she should be left there while Mrs. Loveday and Molly
went on for assistance, the elder lady deeming Molly too young and vacant-
minded to be trusted to go alone. Molly suggested taking the horse, as
the distance might be great, each of them sitting alternately on his back
while the other led him by the head. This they did, Anne watching them
vanish down the white and lumpy road.

She then looked round the room, as well as she could do so by the light
from the open door. It was plain, from the shutters being closed, that
the shepherd had left his house before daylight, the candle and
extinguisher on the table pointing to the same conclusion. Here she
remained, her eyes occasionally sweeping the bare, sunny expanse of down,
that was only relieved from absolute emptiness by the overturned gig hard
by. The sheep seemed to have gone away, and scarcely a bird flew across
to disturb the solitude. Anne had risen early that morning, and leaning
back in the withy chair, which she had placed by the door, she soon fell
into an uneasy doze, from which she was awakened by the distant tramp of
a horse. Feeling much recovered from the effects of the overturn, she
eagerly rose and looked out. The horse was not Miller Loveday's, but a
powerful bay, bearing a man in full yeomanry uniform.

Anne did not wait to recognize further; instantly re-entering the house,
she shut the door and bolted it. In the dark she sat and listened: not a
sound. At the end of ten minutes, thinking that the rider if he were not
Festus had carelessly