In and out amongst the trees Bryda threaded her way, sometimes brushing against one of the lower boughs, which shed its pink-and-white petals on her fair head as she passed.
'Betty!' she called. 'Bet, are you here? Bet!'
Bryda had come to a wicket-gate opening on a space of rugged down, golden with gorse, and from which could be seen an extensive view of Bristol in one direction, and of the village of Langholm and the woods of Leigh on the other.
Bishop's Farm was on the high ground of the Mendips, not a mile distant from the church of Dundry, whose tower is a landmark of this district, and is seen as a beacon to the country-side for many miles.
'Yes, here I am. Bryda, what is the matter?'
Betty was seated on a bit of rock, anxiously looking down on a lamb which the shepherd had brought from the fold, as it seemed, to die.
'It's just dying, that's what it. It's no use making a to-do Miss Betty. Lor'! the master can afford to lose one lamb, and it's no fault of mine.'
'It should have been brought in last evening, Silas. I'll carry it in myself, poor dear little thing.'
'Better not, better not; let it die in peace, miss. No mortal power can save it now. The mother is all but dying, too, and if I save her it's as much as I can do. There, I told you so. It's gone, poor dumb thing.'
For the lamb give one little feeble moan rather than a bleat, drew its thick legs together convulsively, and then lay still.
'Dead! Oh, take it away, Silas,' Bryda exclaimed; 'I cannot bear to see anything dead. Come away, Betty,' she entreated.
'There, there, Miss Biddy, don't take on. I'll carry it off, and don't trouble your heads no more about it. We've all got to die, and the lamb is no worse off than we. Can't say but I am sorry though,' Silas said, in a softer tone, as he picked up the dead lamb. 'I'd sooner see it frisking about in the meadow yonder than lying so cold and quiet.'
And then Silas, in his smock frock and wide hat, strode away over gorse and heather, and left the sisters alone.
Of these sisters Betty was the younger of the two by one year, but older in many ways--older in her careful thought for others, in her unselfish life, in her patience and tender forbearance with her somewhat irascible old grandfather.