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far.’
    â€˜I don’t know about that. It would be in accordance with the rule.’
    â€˜What rule?’
    â€˜The rule is,’ said Vertue, ‘that if we have one chance out of a hundred of surviving, we must attempt it: but if we have none, absolutely none, then it would be self-destruction, and we need not.’
    â€˜It is no rule of mine,’ said John.
    â€˜But it is. We all have the same set of rules, really, you know.’
    â€˜If it is a rule of mine, it is one that I cannot obey.’
    â€˜I don’t think I understand you,’ said Vertue. ‘But of course you may be such a bad climber that you wouldn’t have even one chance . . . that would make a difference, I allow.’
    Then a third voice spoke.
    â€˜You have neither of you any chance at all unless I carry you down.’
    Both the young men turned at the sound. An old woman was seated in a kind of rocky chair at the very edge of the precipice.
    â€˜Oh, it’s you, Mother Kirk, is it?’ said Vertue, and added in an undertone to John, ‘I have seen her about the cliffs more than once. Some of the country people say she is second-sighted, and some that she is crazy.’
    â€˜I shouldn’t trust her,’ said John in the same tone. ‘She looks to me much more like a witch.’ Then he turned to the old woman and said aloud: ‘And how could you carry us down, mother? We would be more fit to carry you.’
    â€˜I could do it, though,’ said Mother Kirk, ‘by the power that the Landlord has given me.’
    â€˜So you believe in the Landlord, too?’ said John.
    â€˜How can I not, dear,’ said she, ‘when I am his own daughter-in-law?’
    â€˜He does not give you very fine clothes,’ said John, glancing at the old woman’s country cloak.
    â€˜They’ll last my time,’ said the old woman placidly.
    â€˜We ought to try her,’ whispered Vertue to John. ‘As long as there is any chance we are not allowed to neglect it.’ But John frowned at him to be silent and addressed the old woman again.
    â€˜Do you not think this Landlord of yours is a very strange one?’ he said.
    â€˜How so?’ said she.
    â€˜Why does he make a road like this running up to the very edge of a precipice—unless it is to encourage travellers to break their necks in the dark?’
    â€˜Oh, bless you, he never left it like that,’ said the old woman. ‘It was a good road all round the world when it was new, and all this gorge is far later than the road.’
    â€˜You mean,’ said Vertue, ‘that there has been some sort of catastrophe.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Mother Kirk, ‘I see there will be no getting you down tonight, so I may as well tell you the story. Come and sit down by me. You are neither of you so wise that you need be ashamed of listening to an old wives’ tale.’

II
    Mother Kirk’s Story
    W HEN THEY WERE SEATED, the old woman told the following story:—
    â€˜You must know that once upon a time there were no tenants in this country at all, for the Landlord used to farm it himself. There were only the animals and the Landlord used to look after them, he and his sons and daughters. Every morning they used to come down from the mountains and milk the cows and lead out the sheep to pasture. And they needed less watching, for all the animals were tamer then; and there were no fences needed, for if a wolf got in among the flocks he would do them no harm. And one day the Landlord was going home from his day’s work when he looked round on the country, and the beasts, and saw how the crops were springing, and it came into his head that the whole thing was too good to keep to himself. So he decided to let the country to tenants, and his first tenant was a young married man. But first the Landlord made a farm in the very centre of the land where the soil was the best and the air most