Red Spider, Volume 2 (of 2) by S. Baring-Gould

“The second night of watch proved unavailing, for the best of good reasons, that the watch was not kept. Oliver Luxmore sat up, but, finding the night chilly outside the house, attempted to keep watch with a pipe of tobacco and a jug and glass of cider posset within. The consequence was that he went to sleep over the fire. During that same night another of the lambs was worried. Mischief had also been done at Swaddledown, as the family heard during the day. There a ewe had been killed, overrun, thrown into a grip (dyke by hedge) whence it could not rise, and where it had been torn, and had died.” -an excerpt