‘I wish I could remember!’ I interrupted her; ‘it’ll bother me all day if I don’t recollect what it was about—I think I dreamt it was a dipping-day. I heard sheep and dogs. I don’t often hear sounds in a dream—’

‘What put a dipping-day into your head, of all strange things?’ she asked with a smile.

‘Mebbe the dogs yesterday,’ I replied.

The smile left her face.

‘One thing’s clear still,’ I continued, ‘the bleating of sheep. I can hear it as if it was real—hark! what was that?’

‘The wind,’ she said, ‘It’s gone to the east, surely.’

‘It wasn’t the wind,’ I answered; ‘no, it wasn’t the noise of the wind—oh if that dream would come or go!’

I strained my ears to listen, but the sound that vexed me did not come again.

‘I suppose I’d better get up and light the fire and see about some venison,’ I went on, and sighed. ‘Bed’s the best place to-day, Terry! Oh, the east wind! It slackens the marrow of your bones.’

‘I’ll get up, it’s my morning,’ she offered, but at her words I jumped out of the hammock and hurried to stir up the fire. I had scarcely bent over the fireplace when the alien noise that tantalized my ears broke out again.

‘Did you hear that?’ I asked, straightening myself up and facing her.

‘I thought I heard something,’ she admitted. ‘What was it, Hugh, did you hear it—’

‘I heard it,’ I answered slowly.

‘What was it?’

‘Sheep,’ I said.

At my words the noise of bleating, borne from the east, swelled up and sounded in our diligent ears.

‘Sheep,’ I said again. ‘My ears are better sleeping than awake, Terry.’

I went to the door of the cave to peer out. I heard Terry scramble from the hammock and in a moment I felt her behind me.

‘Keep back,’ I warned her.

‘Let me see, Hugh,’ she said. ‘I want to see the sheep.’

I retreated into the cave, taking her with me, and sat down on the edge of the table.

‘What did you see?’ she insisted. ‘Hugh, you must tell me, you can’t keep me in ignorance—I’ll go myself and look.’

‘Stay where you are!’ I cried.

‘Then tell me. I’m not a fool or a child.’

I took her arm and led her to the door of the cave. We peered out together, over the gorge, down by the loch, and saw on the verge of the moor a drab white moving mass. The bleating of many sheep dinned in our ears.

‘No one can see us from there,’ Terry whispered.

I shook my head. But venturing to look more incautiously out I caught sight of men in the gully right beneath us, and I dragged Terry back into the cave once more.