Two hours afterwards, he stopped for breath at the bottom of a narrow valley.  The sleet had turned to driving snow, the wind howled in the rocks above, and a swollen beck brawled angrily among the stones.  Tom was hardly distinguishable a few yards ahead and Kit could not see the sheep, but the barking of the dogs came faintly down the steep white slope.  The Herdwicks were strung out along the hillside, with a dog below and above, and it was comforting to know they could not leave the valley, which was shut in by rugged crags.  For a time, driving them would be easy; but it would be different when they left the water and climbed the rise to Bleatarn ghyll.

“How far are we off the mine-house, Tom?” he shouted.

“I dinna ken,” said the shepherd.  “Mayhappen two miles.  Ewes is travelling better; t’lambs is leading them.”

Kit agreed, and they pushed on through the snow.  After a time, the ground got steeper, and when they crossed the noisy beck and scrambled up a shaly bank, Kit was glad to see a broken wall loom among the tossing flakes.  This was the shaft-house of an abandoned mine, and there was a sheep-fold, built with pulled-down material, close by.  He shouted and waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones.  The Herdwicks were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact, struggling flock.  Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when the dogs had driven the sheep into the fold.

“I dinna ken if snow’ll tak’ off or not, but it’s early yet and we must have a rest before we try ghyll,” he said.

They went into the shaft-house and Kit struck a match.  One end of the building had been pulled down and the snow blew in through holes in the roof, but a pile of dry fern filled a corner and rotten beams lay about.  With some trouble, they lighted a fire and, sitting down close by, took out the food they had brought.  The wind screamed about the ruined walls, the smoke eddied round them, and now and then a shower of snow fell on their heads, but they had some shelter and could, if forced, wait for morning.

“Miss Osborn’s a bonny lass and kind; but I reckon she couldn’t talk her father round,” Tom presently remarked.

“No,” said Kit.  “I believe she tried.”

“Favors her mother,” Tom resumed.  “Mrs. Osborn’s heart is good, but at Tarnside women dinna count.  It’s a kind o’ pity, because t’ Osborn menfolk are lakers and always was.”

A laker is a lounging pleasure-seeker and Kit admitted that the remark was justified.

“I sometimes think Osborn means well,” he said.

“Mayhappen!  For aw his ordering folks aboot, he’s wake; like his father, I mind him weel.  Might mak’ a fair landlord if he was letten and had t’ money; but oad Hayes is grasping and always at his tail.”

“The rent-roll’s good.  The estate could be managed well.”

“There’s t’ mortgages and Osborn canna keep money.  When he has it he must spend.  There would be nea poor landlord’s, if I had my way.  I’d let them putten rents up if they had money and spent it on the land.  Low rent means poor farming.”