“Perhaps he's better now,” she said.
Ralph quickened his steps. The dog had gone on in front, and was lost in the darkness.
“Give me your hand, Rotha; the sleet is hard and slape.”
“Don't heed me, Ralph; go faster; I'll follow.”
Just then a sharp bark was heard close at hand, followed by another and another, but in a different key. Laddie had met a friend.
“He's coming,” Rotha said, catching her breath.
“He's here.”
With the shrill cry of a hunted creature that has got back, wounded, to its brethren, Sim seemed to leap upon them out of the darkness.
“Ralph, take me with you—take me with you; do not let me go back to the fell to-night. I cannot go—no, believe me, I cannot—I dare not. Take me, Ralph; have mercy on me; do not despise me for the coward that I am; it's enough to make me curse the great God—no, no; not that neither. But, Ralph, Ralph—”
The poor fellow would have fallen breathless and exhausted at Ralph's feet, but he held him up and spoke firmly but kindly to him,—