indeed, and I will call you John Ridd, if you like; only
please to go, John. And when your feet are well, you know, you can come
and tell me how they are.'

'But I tell you, Lorna, I like you very much indeed--nearly as much as
Annie, and a great deal more than Lizzie. And I never saw any one like
you, and I must come back again to-morrow, and so must you, to see me;
and I will bring you such lots of things--there are apples still, and
a thrush I caught with only one leg broken, and our dog has just had
puppies--'

'Oh, dear, they won't let me have a dog. There is not a dog in the
valley. They say they are such noisy things--'

'Only put your hand in mine--what little things they are, Lorna! And I
will bring you the loveliest dog; I will show you just how long he is.'

'Hush!' A shout came down the valley, and all my heart was trembling,
like water after sunset, and Lorna's face was altered from pleasant play
to terror. She shrank to me, and looked up at me, with such a power of
weakness, that I at once made up my mind to save her or to die with her.
A tingle went through all my bones, and I only longed for my carbine.
The little girl took courage from me, and put her cheek quite close to
mine.

'Come with me down the waterfall. I can carry you easily; and mother
will take care of you.'

'No, no,' she cried, as I took her up: 'I will tell you what to do. They
are only looking for me. You see that hole, that hole there?'

She pointed to a little niche in the rock which verged the meadow, about
fifty yards away from us. In the fading of the twilight I could just
descry it.

'Yes, I see it; but they will see me crossing the grass to get there.'

'Look! look!' She could hardly speak. 'There is a way out from the top
of it; they would kill me if I told it. Oh, here they come, I can see
them.'

The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung on the rocks
above her, and she looked at the water and then at me, and she cried,
'Oh dear! oh dear!' And then she began to sob aloud, being so young and
unready. But I drew her behind the withy-bushes, and close down to the
water, where it was quiet and shelving deep, ere it came to the lip of
the chasm. Here they could not see either of us from the upper valley,
and might have sought a long time for us, even when they came quite
near, if the trees had been clad with their summer clothes. Luckily I
had picked up my fish and taken my three-pronged fork away.

Crouchi