Jim, still trembling from the horror of his fear, came up, and knelt beside his friend. “Ah, but there's bin devilry in this!” he said; “I reck'ned they sheep had bin badly skeared, and not so long agone.”
“Sheep-murder, sure enough!” the other answered. “No fox's doin'—a girt-grown two-shear as could 'maist knock a h'ox.”
Jim's hands travelled from the body to the dead creature's throat. He screamed.
“By gob, Master! look 'ee theer!” He held his hand up in the moonlight, and it dripped red. “And warm yet! warm!”
“Tear some bracken, Jim!” ordered the other, “and set alight. We mun see to this.”
The postman did as bid. For a moment the fern smouldered and smoked, then the flame ran crackling along and shot up in the darkness, weirdly lighting the scene: to the right the low wood, a block of solid blackness against the sky; in front the wall of sheep, staring out of the gloom with bright eyes; and as centre-piece that still, white body, with the kneeling men and lurcher sniffing tentatively round.
The victim was subjected to a critical examination. The throat, and that only, had been hideously mauled; from the raw wounds the flesh hung in horrid shreds; on the ground all about were little pitiful dabs of wool, wrenched off apparently in a struggle; and, crawling among the fern-roots, a snake-like track of red led down to the stream.
“A dog's doin', and no mistakin' thot,” said Jim at length, after a minute inspection.
“Ay,” declared the Master with slow emphasis, “and a sheep-dog's too, and an old un's, or I'm no shepherd.”
The postman looked up.