If that can be made safe, death and pain and poverty and misery are all little things.

And wasn't I fond of Aileen, in spite of all my hardness and cross-grained obstinacy ?--so fond that I was just going to hug her to me and say, 'Take it all your own way, Ailie dear,' when Jim came tearing out of the hut, bareheaded, and stood listening to a far-off sound that caught all our ears at once.

We made out the source of it too well--far too well.
What was the noise at that hour of the night?
It was a hollow, faint, distant roaring that gradually kept getting louder.

It was the strange mournful bellowing that comes from a drove of cattle forced along an unknown track.

As we listened the sound came clearly on the night wind, faint, yet still clearly coming nearer.
'Cattle being driven,' Jim cried out; 'and a big mob too.