The men would uncover their heads and bow as they
passed, and the Keeper of Redesdale, courteous in the spirit as in the
body, would punctiliously return their salutations.
Thus did the years wear on until the appointed days were fulfilled, and
the Rede Valley knew its Keeper no more. On the last day of the time
fixed by him, the skeely man was thatching a cottage at the Woollaw.
Suddenly he felt something touch him, as though the wing of a bird had
brushed by. He came down the ladder on which he stood, and it seemed as
though the bird's feathers had brushed against his heart, and had come
from a place where the cold and ice are not cold and ice as mortals know
them, for "he was seized," says the chronicler, "with a cold trembling."
Some power, too strong for his own skill to combat, had laid hold on
him, and shivering, still shivering, he fell into the hands of Death.
Such was the passing of Percival Reed, Keeper of Redesdale, who took
with him, when at length he relinquished his charge, a humble henchman,
a hind of the Rede Valley.
DANDY JIM THE PACKMAN
It was the back end of the year. The crops were all in, and but little
was left of the harvest moon that had seen the Kirn safely won on the
farms up "Ousenam" Water.
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