Front matter (continued 2)

Now at this time my sister Ruth kept my father’s house, my mother, whose sweet face I scarce remember yet seem at times to catch a glimpse of in my dreams, being many years dead, though living till enshrined in my father’s heart. Picture a maiden, “sweet and twenty,” just as high as a tall man’s heart, light of foot, soft of voice, with wavy auburn hair, dark-brown, soft eyes, yet not without their roguish twinkle, tempting lips, teeth of pearl, a neat waist, a neater ankle, a rounded bust, a shrewd, common-sense mind, a soft heart, and a ready tongue—and that was Ruth. A ray of sunshine in the house? Pooh! Ruth was spring and summer all in one, my father’s darling, my own torment and delight, the spoiled pet of the grave elders of the church, and the idol of their grown sons, whose assiduousness at the Sunday services and the weekly prayer meetings I very much fear must be set at least as much to Ruth’s score as to our father’s.

Now considering how awful were the terrors which the faithful at Pole Moor escaped ’tis sad to think how lightly they appraised the services of their pastor, if their appreciation must be measured by the stipend they afforded him. ’Tis true he lived rent free, had grazing for a cow, a mistal, a potato patch, pew rents, and the proceeds of an occasional collection—benefits the pillars of the church enumerated with unction as they reminded themselves that they did not muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. But they ever seemed to forget, and my father was the last to jog their memories, that no one came for alms to Pole Moor and went empty away. So if we had high thinking at the Manse we’d low living, and we seemed to thrive on it. We kept no servant now Ruth was grown, and my father foddered his cow fed his pig “mucked out” the mistal and stye, mowed his meadow, and dug his garden himself: and Ruth’s firm little hands milked the cow, tended the poultry, made the butter, made the bread, cooked our rare joints, and kept all as clean as a new ha’penny.

And so it chanced that as Jim and I drew near the little enclosure walled off from the moor, which served as our kitchen garden, we came upon the reverend pastor of Pole Moor, dressed in a long blue linen smock, his feet shod, in the homely clog, his bare and bald head perspiring freely as he thrust the prongs of a fork into the earth and, turned up the soil and threw the gathered potatoes into a small round basket.

“Who’s th’ owd felly?” asked Jim in a whisper.

“Well, father, how are you?” And I clasped his outstretched hand in mine as he drew the other across his moist brow before pulling his horn spectacles from the crown of his head, where they rested when he was not sleeping or engaged in searching for them in every nook and corner of the house, and often even then. “This is my friend Jim, of whom you’ve heard me speak.”

“And welcome kindly, Jim, to Pole Moor. You’ll stop the week-end, of course, though I fear you’ll have to share Abel’s bed—that is if it will hold you both. Have you seen Ruth? She’ll be milking, I doubt. But come your ways into the house. You’ll be tired after your walk, and a pint of home-brewed won’t come amiss. Or would you prefer buttermilk? Ruth! Ruth!” my father called, and as we entered the tiny manse—Jim spent a good few minutes scraping his feet on the doormat, an act his mother solemnly enjoined upon him e’er we left—Ruth herself emerged, hot and flushed, from the barn, her milking-stool tucked under one arm, a frothing piggin of milk fresh from the udders borne carefully in her right hand.

“Don’t come near me, Abe, or I’st spill.”

Jim has since confided to me that at first glance of my sister’s sonsie face and first sound of her tuneful voice his heart gave a bound within his breast and then left his keeping for good and all— and indeed the maiden was a picture fair enough to look upon. Anyway he grew red in the face, pulled off his cap, and made what he called “a bow and a scrape,” whilst Ruth smiled up into his face with one swift look that I doubt not took in his six feet six inches at a glance, and then scurried off, ostensibly to draw the home-brewed; though as a rule beer barrels are not kept in the bedroom, and it doesn’t need to don a clean print dress and ribbons and lash your hair before drawing a jug of ale.

We quenched our thirst with that modest home-brewed, Jim vowing without a qualm that better he’d never supped, no not in any inn between Greenfield and Huddersfield, and professing incredulity when assured that Ruth had brewed it herself; though, if truth must be told, the liquor was little other than coloured water with a head on it, and Jim could have drunk a barrel of it without, as they say, “getting forrader”—but I blush to say that from this out Jim began to display powers of dissimulation hitherto unsuspected, even going so far as to assure my reverend sire, before we left Pole Moor, that he had long felt uneasy about his own soul’s welfare, and doubted he should never find peace till he had been duly “dipped”—Jim, who could scarce be dragged to church, and who made open scoff of the Methody carryings-on at Wrigley Mill.

“You’d best fodder the cow, Ruth, and then we’ll have tea—the lads will be sharp set. Can you manage to cut the ham, or shall I help you?” But Jim declared that if there was one thing he could do better than another in this world it was to water and fodder a cow, bed her down, and muck out a shippon and as for cutting ham, he had missed his vocation in not being ’prenticed to a butcher. So Ruth tripped off to the kitchen, Jim, bending his broad shoulders to avoid banging his head as he passed through the low doorway, lumbering in her wake like a man-o’-war convoyed by a saucy frigate.

My father settled himself with a sigh of satisfaction in his easy chair, took his churchwarden from the mantelpiece, emptied the remainder of the beer into his pint pot, lit his pipe of “old Women’s baccy,” as shag was called in those days, and prepared to listen to my usual budget of the doings at Wrigley Mill during the last while back, casting curious and inquiring looks at the heavy box I had placed upon the table.

“I’ve a strange tale to tell, father,” I began. “And fain I am to be at home and have your counsel and assistance. You knew Mr. Turner, the hermit of Stanedge Moor, as they called him?”

“I rather knew of him than knew him. I came across him at times in my journeyings and would fain have communed with him, but he held aloof. A lone man, and I fear an unhappy man—but it was not for me to force myself upon him. Well, what of him?”

“He’s dead, and he’s committed that box to my keeping.” And then I told my tale.

“Now, what’s to be done, father? Four hundred pound and more’s a sight of money. You’ll have to look after that. I can’t keep it at Wrigley Mill, that’s certain sure. Mary would go off her head if she knew it was in the house, and I’d be dreaming of burglars and cutthroats till my nights were a burden to me.”

“This is a heavy matter Abel, my son—one to be pondered over nor determined lightly, to be taken to the Lord in Prayer. But one thing is borne in upon me, a thought that comes to me from the Book of Books, that well of wisdom—you must not do after the manner of that wicked and slothful servant to whom his lord said, ‘Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers and then at my coming I should have received my own with usury.’ This lucre must to the bank that it increase and fructify till such time as the woman and her child be found.”

“That’s plain as a pikestaff,” I agreed. “But what can I do to find them? It seems to me Mr. Garside did all a man could do at the time, and after all those years...”

“I’ll think upon it, Abel, and a way may be opened unto us”—and that was all I could get out of him that night. It seemed to me that the good man had resolved upon a policy of what I have heard called “masterly inactivity”; and I’d great trust in my father’s judgment. And perhaps at the back of my head lurked insidious the thought, why should I be in such a hurry to be shut of four hundred pounds? I tried to banish this unworthy prompting of the devil, but there I confess it was, and I’ll not set up to be better than my neighbours.

It was a glorious night—the moor was just bathed in a moonlight you could almost see to read by. Ruth and Jim had disappeared into the mistal, some hay wanted cutting, and chop grinding, so Jim had said. I put my head through the shippon door as I passed and there were Jim and Ruth sat on a heap of pulled hay, the cow was bedded down for the night and placidly chewing her cud—but Ruth and Jim seemed to have found a deal to say to each other, and I was in no ways minded to disturb them and take Jim away, for the simple reason that I was bent on an errand on which it is proverbial that two are company and three are none. I set my face towards Ainley Place and Burnplatts, pretending to myself that ’twas but Christian charity to enquire as to the progress of Ephraim o’ Burnplatt’s game foot, but knowing full well in my heart of hearts, which beat tumultuous at the bare thought, that my eyes ached for another sight of the maiden Miriam; but how to compass my design I must perforce leave to the chapter of accidents.

Some hundred yards or so above the cluster of a score or more of the straw-thatched cots or hovels of mud and rubble that constituted the notorious hamlet, I came across a surly looking customer, clad in fustian and wearing a moleskin cap, seated on a low wall with a cur as unprepossessing as himself perched by his side. The beast bristled and shewed his teeth viciously, but the man quieted it with a word.

“Yo’re out late, mester, an’ summat out o’ yo’r latitude, aw’m thinkin’. Strangers are noan so welcome at Burnplatts this time o’ neet. But happen yo’re a buyer? Dun yo’ want a hoss or a moke belike? Aw can deal wi yo’ for th’ finest, clivverest donkey as ivver went a buntin’—an’ cheap, too.”

I said I was in no present need of either horse or donkey.

“It’s been warm to-day,” he volunteered.

“Pleasantly so.”

“Did yo’ come bi ‘Th’ Sun.’”

I acknowledged that I had passed the doors of that hospitable inn.

“Rare ale at ‘Th’ Sun.’”

I agreed.

“Aw could sup a quart now, by gow I could.”

I fumbled in my breeches pocket and pulled forth a silver coin. The rogue’s eyes glistened.

“I don’t want a horse. I want to know in which of these houses I shall find Ephraim Sykes.”

“Yo’r noan after him, are yo’?”

“After him?”

“Aye, a cop.”

I laughed. “No, a friend. Ephraim and I have been friends since we were lads together. I know he’s had an accident to his foot, and I want to see how he’s going on.”

“He lives in yon hoil yonder, th’ furthest fro’ here. I’d best go wi’ yo’—th’ dogs ’ud welly worry y’ if yo’ went by yo’rsen.” He got off the wall, his cur slunk at his heels, and we passed through the hamlet, our progress punctuated by a concert of howling, growling, baying, and barking from at least a hundred canine throats. We came to a single-storied house, like the rest, straw-thatched and rudely built, but I noticed, even by that illusive light, that it was longer and neater than others that we passed. A red light shone through a curtain drawn across the single window. “This is owd Mother Sykes’s,” my guide said, as I halted near the low door, and I slipped into his hand the coveted coin.

I knocked.

There was the sound as of muttering voices, and at last, long last, the portal was opened about half an inch, and I caught a glimpse of the old beldame I had seen at the Wakes.

“What dost want?” she said in a harsh voice. “We’re a’ i’ bed.”

“I want to see your Ephraim. It’s Abe Holmes, tell him.”

At my name she opened the door grudgingly, and I entered the low room. It was bare to the smoke grimed rafters. The walls were whitewashed, or had been once upon a time. The floor was of hard earth, but strewn with rushes. There was a sullen fire in a grate in a yawning chimney place, so wide and deep that it afforded room within the chimney nook for a seat on either side of the fire. A great iron pot hung over the fire, suspended by a chain attached to a bar across the chimney, and if my nose did not deceive me a very savoury supper was in preparation. There was a round three-legged table, three chairs, and a long oak settle, on which Ephraim lay covered with sacking. The house had clearly two rooms, for I noticed a doorway, and I concluded rightly that this inner chamber was the sanctum of Mother Sykes and the maiden I yearned to see. I strained my ears for sound of voice or movement within the room, but heard none.

The old dame seated herself on a stool before the fire, at times rising slowly and feebly and stirring the contents of the simmering pot with a thible.

“Well, how’s your foot, Ephraim?” I asked, cheerily as I could.

“Granny theer has bathed it wi’ some mak’ o’ herb—oo’s gret on herbs is Granny an’ it’s done it more good nor all th’ bottles in th’ doctor’s shop.”

“Dock-leaves an’ spring watter, nowt no more,” muttered the old dame.

“Aw can put mi fooit to th’ ground now, an’ I’st be dancin’ in a week, an’ then it’ll be ‘Oh! be joyful’ for yon Bradburys at Bill’s o’ Jack’s.”

“What were you doing on the Moor?” I asked. “Nowt, just now. Aw hadn’t even th’ tyke wi’ me. Nor a net, nor trap, nor gun, nor nowt. Aw were just comin’ whom. To be sure aw’d takken a short cut across th’ Moor, so aw suppose aw wer’ trespassin’ But they’ d no ca’ to shooit me for that. But us is fair game. ‘Gi’ a dog a bad name an’ hang him’ ’s true Gospel. But there’s law even for vermin, an’ if we cannot get it fro’ th’ justices—an’ weel we know we cannot—we’st tak’ it.”

“Why not have them up?” I suggested.

Ephraim snorted contemptuous. “Tak’ my advice, Abe. If ever yo’ fall out with the devil don’t yo go to hell for justice; an’ it’s th’ same thing as a man suspected o’ an unlicensed liking for fur an feathers appealing to th’ beaks for fair play. Quod ’em fust, an’ try ’em afterwards, is their way wi’ a Burnplatter.”

I couldn’t help thinking that in nine cases out of ten the method, if somewhat arbitrary, met the merits of the matter, but I did not feel called upon to say as much to Ephraim.

“I called at ‘The Sun’ as I came by,” I said, sheepishly. “I didn’t know how you might be off for brandy. It’s useful in cases of sickness.”

“I’m very sick, to be sure,” said Ephraim with great promptitude, “an’ so’s Granny, be’nt yo’ Granny?” A wintry smile parted the withered lips, and she hobbled to an old oaken cupboard that fitted into a corner of the room, and produced three drinking horns, rimmed with silver—“th’ wedding horns,” she called them. She produced also a short black pipe, crammed it with tobacco, took a hearty swig at the potent liquor, and sat down before the fire, sucking at her pipe in huge content, and condescending to eye me with much less disfavour than her reception had displayed.

“And this,” I could not help the repulsive reflection, “is the grandmother of my peerless Miriam!”

I rose to go. I itched to ask after Miriam, but somehow the words would not come. I could not place her in that coarse environment. I loathed to think of her as the associate of these abandoned Burnplatters.

“I’d be careful how you meddle with those Bradbury’s,” was my parting counsel to Ephraim. “The law’s the law, you know; and ’tis poor work for a horse to kick against the prick of the spur, and just as idle for a man to run his head against a stone wall. I’d give them a wide berth if I were you, Ephraim.”

“Yo’d turn t’ other cheek, I suppose,” sneered Ephraim. “But yo’ see I’m not a parson’s son, an’ if I were I could find a text or two more to my thinking than that—‘an eye for an eye an’ a tooth for a tooth is somewhere i’ t’ Bible, or I’m mista’en.”

I remembered to have heard my father say that the devil not only could quote the Scriptures to his purpose, but on one memorable occasion had actually done so. But every man to his trade. I’m no preacher and just as certainly I was not Ephraim’s keeper. So I took my leave, promising to look in again. Ephraim said neither yea nor nay to this, but the old dame, telling me they kept better brandy at “The Star” than “The Sun,” assured me I should be welcome.

I breathed more freely once out of that hamlet of ill-repute, and set off at a good pace towards Pole Moor, lamenting the failure of my attempt to get sight once more of Miriam, and wondering greatly what could have got her.

And lo! a mile and more from Burnplatts I spied her walking slowly homewards. Her step was listless, her whole being drooped. As I drew near I saw her features plainly by the moon’s cold light, and if I erred not a tear glistened on the long black lashes that curtained her glorious eyes. So rapt was she in thought that she was unconscious of my approach, and when I stood right in her path she started with a little cry, and her hand went to her bosom.

“Miriam!” I cried, and stretched out both my hands.

“Why, ’tis Abel Holmes” she said, and a blush mantled on her cheek If I’m any reader of what the poet calls the light that lies in woman’s eyes the maid was glad see me, and yet alarm mingled with her joy. She glanced apprehensively around the moor.

“Nay, we have it to ourselves,” I laughed, reading her thoughts “But you’re in trouble, Miriam I’m sure of it. Why your cheek is wet. Has anyone ill-used you? And I clenched my fist. I felt just then as if I could face an army of Burnplatters, and would welcome the chance of braying the lot to a jelly.

“Nay, ’tis nought, Abel, only thoughts, idle thoughts. They come over me at times when I’m all by my lone, and they make me sad. But perhaps I oughtn’t to call you Abel. But I heard your brave friend call you Abel.”

“Abe, more like.”

“Ah, well, ’tis all one. And so I thought of you as Abel.”

“Then you have thought of me,” I put in eagerly. “And so have I of you, Miriam. What a sweet name; I never thought a flame could sound so sweet. I’ve whispered it to my heart a thousand times, and the birds in the sky sing it to me, and the soft winds breathe it in my ear, and the very leaves of the trees rustle it, Miriam, Miriam.”

“Hush, hush, you must not say such things. Who am I but the poor outcast maid, and you the good parson’s son. ’Tis folly. And what do you know of me? Why, you’ve scarce ever seen me, though many’s the time I’ve watched you and your sister gathering bilberries on the moor, and wished that I, too, had a brother.

“You’ve Ephraim,” I said.

“Ephraim! Ephraim is not my brother. I could find it in my heart to wish he was. He is my cousin. At least they say so. But I don’t know, it’s all so dark to me. You see, I never knew either father or mother. Ever since I can remember ’twas only granddam and then Ephraim that they say’s my cousin. But I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t feel it here,” and she passed her hand to her heart. “Ah, ’tis a piteous thing never to have know a mother’s love,” and her voice broke, and the tears threatened to fall.

“But they’re kind to you, Miriam?”

“Kind? Ah! Yes. They mean to be kind. They call me their Queen, and some of the older ones tell of days before they came to Burnplatts, when they had a Queen of their own, and they say I’m come to bring those days again. But oh! how I loathe it all the lying, the drinking, the stealing, the cursing. And the women! They’re worse than the men. And they hate me and speak ill of me because I will not be as they are. Why, even Ephraim bids them leave me alone.”

“And why do you wish Ephraim were your brother?”

“Because—because then,” she faltered, and hung her head in shamed confusion, “oh! then he’d be fond of me—in another way. But you won’t understand.”

Oh, didn’t I though.

“Well, never mind about Ephraim now,” I said. “Tell me about yourself.” We’d walked slowly on, side by side, away from Burnplatts, and had come to a small plantation of wind-battered trees that sheltered us from view, and we sat upon a granite boulder that bulged through the turf. “Tell me about yourself, Miriam—how do you pass your time, what do you do?”

“Oh! I can find enough to do. I knit. I’m a famous knitter. Granddam taught me that, and she sells the things I knit at the farmhouses round; and I make mops and brooms—they say mine are the cleverest fingers in all Burnplatts; and then, when I can buy a book, I read.”

“Read!” I could not help exclaiming, for though it has been said that reading and writing come by Nature, well I knew that Nature’s travails need a midwife if reading and writing are to be the issues.

“Aye, those were happy days when I learned to read and write. I was only a wee child then, and old Daddy was alive and dwelt with us at Burnplatts.”

“Old Daddy! You’re rich in relations‚” I broke in jealously.

She laughed merrily. “Daddy was no relation. ’Tis but the name we all called him by. He used to live at Burnplatts, but he’s been dead these many years. I don’t know how he came to be there, a poor, harmless, shiftless, old man he was. They all made game of him, and he was at everyone’s beck and nod. But they didn’t grudge him meat and drink when they found he could learn me to read and write, and sums, too,” she added triumphantly. “I’ve read the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ twenty times, and twenty times to that, and when you tore me from that horrid man at the Wakes I likened you to Greatheart in the story.”

I believe I blushed. “I’d have fared badly but for Jim,” I told her.

“Oh! Jim,” she said disparagingly, with that utter lack of justice in the award of praise and blame which riper years have taught me to look for her in her sex.

Well now, how long we sat there I don’t know: it seemed but a few minutes. But suddenly she sprang up in consternation. “I must be going; they’ll be searching for me.”

“I’ll see you home,” I said. “Tarry a while, Miriam, I’ve such a lot to say.”

“I daren’t. I must go, and go alone. You must not be seen with me. Granddam would bar me in, and Ephraim—oh! I daren’t think what Ephraim would do. He’s brave and means to be kind. But you cannot tell what he’s like when his blood’s up and the drink’s in him.”

“I’m not feared,” I said stoutly.

“No, but I am. Burnplatters don’t stick at trifles, and a knife in the back on a dark night’s little to them. Never come nigh Burnplatts again.”

“But, Miriam, see you I must. See, I’ll bring Ruth, my sister Ruth. You’d love Ruth.”

“Aye, but would Ruth love me?”

“I’ll go bail,” I answered with great confidence.

“I should dearly like it. But how to manage it. When will you be on Pole Moor again? To-morrow night I’ll be here an hour after sunset. And now go, go. Good-night and go.”

I pressed her hand and she sped away on feet that seemed scarce to touch the heather.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRYST.

THE next day, being the Sabbath, all our household must go to Chapel. Jim, contrary to his wont on the day of rest, was astir betimes. We had shared the same bed, and I should think that between cockcrow and seven o’clock Jim had drawn his great silver watch from under his pillow a score of times, and seemed to find the hours go on leaden feet. To my impatient inquiry why he couldn’t be still and give me a chance of dropping off, he explained that he had promised our Ruth to milk the cow for her. Now I am firmly persuaded that Jim had never performed that delicate operation before, and for anything he knew to the contrary the udders might be relieved of their milky stream by machinery. At last, to my great content he got up, dressed, and stole down the creaking staircase in his stocking feet, and I heard him lighting the kitchen fire and, if I greatly erred not, vigorously fettling his boots—at which I marvelled not a little, for at Wrigley it was his mother who lit the fire and cleaned his boots—but then to be sure, Ruth was not his mother, nor yet his wife.

I suppose I shall never forget my father’s sermon of that, morning, nor, I think, will Jim. I learned long afterwards that it had been composed by my father and was that morning preached because one of the members of Pole Moor had so far fallen from grace as to marry one of the uncovenanted worshippers at St. James’s instead of fixing his affections upon a sister of the true faith.

Now, my father read as his first lesson the twenty-fifth of Numbers, and when he read the words, “And behold one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,” I could have sworn that he allowed his eyes to dwell sternly upon me—so true is it that conscience doth make cowards of us all; and when the sacred word went on to tell how Phinehas rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly, I caught myself glaring defiantly round the unconscious worshippers of Pole Moor and mentally daring one and all to take up a javelin or, what would come handier to them, a pitchfork against me and Miriam. And the preacher’s text was sixth of second Corinthians, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what Communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” And noticed that Jim fidgeted uneasily in his seat and glanced oft and furtively at Ruth; but she sat unmoved alike by lesson, text, and the diatribes my good father hurled against the daughters of the Erastian heretics And, indeed, I have ever noticed that whilst women are more devout than men, the shafts of theology fall harmless against the adamant of their common-sense. But Jim I knew was not a little perturbed in mind by my father’s discourse, as I gathered later from his indirect questioning.

“Who were Belial, Abel?”

“Belial?” I questioned in surprise.

“Aye, him ’at your father read about out o’ th’ Bible. He seemed to ha’ a rare grudge agen th’ poor chap, choose who he were.”

“Why, I’m not quite sure, Jim; but I think it’s a polite name for the devil.”

“Phew! Auld Harry! An’ well he might ha’. But surely he doesn’t mean ’at all th’ fo’k ’at hasn’t been reightly dipped be sons o’ Belial. An’, by th’ same token, what for should he be so bitter agen that Moabitish woman? That were a foulish name he ca’ed her. Th’ poor wench had done nought wrong ’at aw could mak’ out. But if it’s i’ th’ Bible aw suppose it’s all reight, an’, to be sure, your father’s further larnt nor us, an’ he sud know.”

Now it was not for me to cast a doubt upon my father’s teaching, but I had to comfort Jim some way.

“I take it ’tis but a manner of speaking, Jim. Religious people get into a way of flinging texts about. Now there’s one consolation about texts. If you find one that seems to bear all one way, you’ve only to look long enough and you’ll find another that bears just as plainly the other way. That’s why religious people, no matter what sect they belong to, can always find unction for their own souls, and nettles for other folk to sit on.”

“But your feyther seemed terrible in earnest. I didn’t rightly understand all he said. He’s a varry difficult man to sit under is yo’r feyther. When I go to Church aw can sleep reight through th’ sermon and o’er wakken till th’ parson gets to ‘And now to God the Father…’ But aw n’er closed mi e’en all this forenoon. He seems fair set agen th’ Church fo’k. Aw rekkon, now, if onnybody but a Baptist went after your Ruth your father ’ud show him to th’ door i’ double quick time.”

“I don’t think he’d like it, to be sure,” I conceded.

Jim looked very crestfallen.

“But then, you know, Jim, the fold is always open. Anyone can be dipped after full approval. He might attend regularly at Pole Moor, say for twelve months, and then I daresay he would be received into the company of the elect.”

“But don’t you think your feyther’d smell a rat? Mightn’t he tumble to it ’at th’ chap were after Ruth?”

“Not he, i’ faith,” I answered with confidence. “A preacher’s only too willing to believe that he’s the lure. And then, you know, Jim, if I know anything of our Ruth, all the texts in the Bible wouldn’t prevent her having the man she’d set her heart on.”

“Aw’m fain to hear it, Abe. Not that it’s onny business o’ mine, yo’ know. Aw were only axing in a general sort o’ way, you know.”

“Of course,” I said, as Jim seemed to look for some comment on this remark. “Of course.”

“You mean ’at ’oo’s booked already?”

“I mean nothing of the sort. Why, she’s only a chit of a girl yet. ’Twill be time enough for Ruth to be thinking of courting in another ten years’ time.”

“Ten fiddlesticks,” quoth Jim, rudely. “How mich younger is she than yersen, I sud like to know.”

“Oh! that’s different,” I snapped.

“Aw dunnot see it,” said Jim; and we arrived at his mother’s house in Wrigley Mill Fold as nearly on the verge of a tiff as ever we had been in our long acquaintance.

Now I suppose it was because I was not quite easy about my own affairs that I had listened with less than my usual patience to Jim’s maunderings. When chapel loosed that morning I had whispered to Ruth that I wanted some private talk with her; and, our simple midday meal concluded, and the pots sided away, she had joined me as I sauntered expectant in the garden. I drew her away from the house, and then I poured into her ears the story of the events that had so strangely broken the even tenor of my life—not omitting the scene at the Wakes, in which Jim had figured so bravely.

“My!” she commented, “wouldn’t I just like to have seen Jim throw that gamekeeper head over heels. He’s a proper man is Jim. And so ’twas he after all rescued the poor girl from the brute’s clutches. Not but what she deserved what she got—what does she want trolloping about at Fairs and Wakes? Why can’t she stop at home and earn her living like a decent body?”

“Oh! Ruth,” I protested.

“Oh! you may ‘Oh! Ruth’ me; but it’s there all the same. She’s no better than she should be, I’st warrant. Men don’t go mauling lasses about in that fashion unless they’ve been led up to it by th’ girls themselves I know their artful ways,” she added vindictively. “And I suppose Jim’s head over heels in love with the girl. It always happens so in th’ story-books.”

“I don’t think Jim’s given a second thought to her,” I hastened to assure her, for I saw which way the cat jumped “It’s me,” I added lamely, stammering and blushing like the booby I felt.

“You, you!” she cried. “Oh! Abel, what will father say? I’ll be bound that’s what he was driving at with his Midianitish woman, and I thought it as that girl down at Slaithwaite. Somebody’s been filling his ears with a fine tale.”

“Let’s hope not,” I said, affecting a cheerfulness I was far from feeling. “But, father or no father, I’m going to get Miriam away from those Burnplatts riff-raff if it’s to be done by hook or crook. A man’s not a pig if he chances to have been born in a stye, and Miriam’s a good girl, Burnplatter or no Burnplatter. And I want you to help me, Ruth. I’m hard hit, sis, and that’s the truth o’ ’t.”

Now, I suppose there never was maiden yet born into this world who has not revelled in a love story. You’ve only to look at the dear creatures as they crowd round a church door at a wedding to make sure of that. The sight of a white veil and orange blossoms sets their sweet hearts all of a quiver. They’re so in love with love that if they haven’t a romance of their own they’re quick to enter into another’s, and if the course of true love doesn’t run smooth it’s not for want of willing help to straighten the way. And I dare say my astute sister may have reflected that one good turn deserves another, and that she herself might have need of a brother’s backing in the days to come. Anyhow, though with many a discouraging shake of her clever little head, she promised me to do what she could to win to speech with Miriam and help me to my heart’s desire. Though what she could do she avowed she failed to see.

“She’s a strange girl, that Miriam of yours,” she averred. “I’ve seen her scores of times these years back. Why, she can’t be as old as I am for I remember her, a little, black-eyed, wild-looking, elfish thing, going about the moors with that half-witted Daddy folk said was such a scholar. I’ve come across her bilberrying, or sat upon a boulder making up bunches of wild flowers, and singing softly some strange heathenish song—she’s a sweet voice enough, I’ll allow. But she’s either feart or proud. I’d have made up to her many’s the time for my heart ached for the girl brought up among those good-for-nought Burnplatters, but no! she was off, like an unbroken colt, before I could say ten words. And more by token I’m a bit feared myself o’ that old witch she goes about with. Folk say she’s got the evil eye, and the girls always cross their fingers when she goes by.”

“I’m surprised at you, Ruth. Where’s your Christianity?”

“That’s all very well, Abel. But facts are facts, and there’s none so much smoke but what there’s a fire somewhere. She’s an evil name in the countryside, and I could wish your sweetheart—if it has to be, though let’s hope you’ll cure of it—had anyone but her for a granny. Then there’s that Ephraim—not but what he might have been all right if he’d been reared different. I remember him as nice a lad as ever strode—but those Burnplatters would spoil a saint.”

“But about. Miriam?” I interrupted, for I was not greatly concerned to hear my sister at large upon the possibilities of Ephraim’s nature.

“When are you to see her again?”

“To-night, please God.”

“I’d leave God out of the question in this job, Abel. Let’s hope it isn’t all a peck of the other one’s brewing.”

“Pshaw!” was all I’d patience to utter.

“Well, ‘pshaw’ be it. You see Miriam and tell her, I’ll make it in my way to meet her on the moor, and if she’s a mind to be friends with me, why, for your sake, Abel, I’ll go far out of my way to be friends with her. Though what th’ congregation will say if they come to know of my ’companying with her and that they will, for certain sure, is more than I care to think.”

“Can’t you say you’re trying to convert her Ruth? There’s more rejoicing, you know, over one sinner that repenteth—though I’ll knock the man down that calls Miriam a sinner. Still, if she could be got to chapel….”

“Abel Holmes wouldn’t fail to be at chapel, too. Why, man, I don’t suppose the poor girl’s got a go-to-meeting frock to bless herself with. But there, Jim’s come out of the house and gone into the barn. He’ll be lighting his pipe and setting th’ hay on fire if I don’t watch him. Go your ways, Abel, and good luck to you. ‘Who maun to Coupar, maun to Coupar.’ What has to be, will be’s good doctrine, if all’s fore-ordained from the beginning; but I could have wished the good Lord had ordained anyone but a Burnplatter for my sister-in-law”—and off she tripped towards the shippon.

I could scarce wait till our Sunday “drinking”—they call it tea nowadays—before I was off to keep my tryst with Miriam, making what I felt to be the lamest of excuses for shirking the evening service. Sundown, Miriam had set, and that I took to be about the time my father would have inverted the hour-glass on the edge of his pulpit and begun one of those long discourses of his that nothing short of an earthquake could have curtailed. So over the moors I sped on the wings of love, only, of course, to reach the plantation long before there were signs of Miriam, and to pass the interval in an agony of longing and apprehension. Sober-minded folk, with as much blood in their bodies as there is in a fish’s tail, may marvel at the fever that now contained me and point sagaciously to the fact that I knew little or nothing of the maiden.

But love, I take it, is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and one cannot tell whence it cometh. Time will not breed it, nor does it come of the will, nor yet of judgment and calculation. A man cannot love where he will, nor where he should, nor can he deny love entry when it clamours at the door of his heart. ’Tis like the importunate widow; it will not be said nay. And to my thinking love is born full grown, hot, and lusty. It isn’t a seedling that that has to be watered and sun-shone into life, nor yet a puny weakling that has to be coddled into strength and vigour. It is born a giant, and every man it sways is a hero for the nonce. Nor, I doubt, can love be cast out by prayer and fasting.

But it was not of philosophising I dreamed as I paced on and about that plantation, glancing at my watch and that laggard sun a thousand times, and raking the horizon with anxious eye. I vow I knew by the thumping of my heart that she was near ere sight or sound revealed her approach, and at weary length she came, not from the direction of Burnplatts, but as though she had made a wide detour, as indeed I learned she had, fetching a compass of many a mile’s length, and heeding the distance not one jot, for in those days, when coach fares were high, people had legs and knew how to use them, too, and thought little of covering on foot forty or fifty miles of rough country between sunrise and sundown of a summer’s day.

Now all the way from Pole Moor I had been inventing speeches in my head to outpour to Miriam. I had framed compliments after the manner of the gallants of whom I had read in books. I had even ransacked my memory for poetry, but could think of nothing but that silly jingle—

but those Valentine lines I dismissed as an utterly inadequate expression of my sentiments And, after all, it was love’s labour lost, for, when she drew near me I could only grasp her hand and gaze upon her face till she would not meet my eye, but hung down her head and fetched her breath as if she’d been running, though I vow she must have crawled to the place. And when speech came to me all I could find to say at first was that it had been a grand day but was cooler now; and then a clucking grouse whizzed past not a stone throw from us, swift and strong on wing, and chuntering its weird “Go back, go back,” almost as plain as a man can speak. We started away from each other as if we’d been our first parents in Eden caught talking to the serpent, for, indeed, there’s no gainsaying our nerves were all a-quiver that night. Miriam, being a woman, was the first to recover her self-possession.

“Where’s Ruth?” she asked. “I thought you’d bring your sister. I shouldn’t have come, but for that—at least, well, perhaps not.”

“Come, that’s better,” I said. “You’ll see Ruth fast enough. She’s just dying to see you.” Now that was pure invention.

“Ah, why so?” And then I saw my opening.

“Why! Because I’ve told her, Miriam, what an angel you are, and how lonesome, and how much in need of a sister’s sympathy and help. And I’ve told her what I’ve come here this night to tell you—that I love you, I love you, I love you. Oh! Miriam, I’m not clever, and I cannot twist my tongue to smooth speeches, but I know this, that you are the sun of my heaven, the light and warmth of my life. I haven’t lived till now. I’ve breathed, but I haven’t lived, and now I cannot think of life without you, Miriam.”

Her bosom rose and fell tumultuous; she swayed as though a sudden weakness had filched her strength; and she looked at me ah! well, I have seen that look in one woman’s eyes, and those were hers, and at that glance my heart leaped in my breast, and I had my arm about her waist and she was clasped to my breast, and I was raining kisses on her dark tresses, her cheeks, her quivering lips And it wasn’t the russet moor by Burnplatts we stood on then, nor did the grey, Puritan sky of an English autumn arch above our heads, nor were those the notes of common moorland songsters that sang their evening hymn—we stood entwined on the plains of Paradise, and heaven’s own light bathed us in its unspeakable effulgence, and heaven’s choir luted ravishing music to our ears. ’Twas love, the first, pure, soul-revealing love of man and maid: the nectar one tastes but once, and tasting first knows life.

The sky was studded with stars before I would let Miriam go, though many a time she vowed she dare not stop a minute, and made to go, and as many times shrank coyly back into the haven of my arms, and giving back kiss for kiss. And then she would have gone with my purpose half fulfilled, but that in pulling out my watch I drew out also the ring which Mr. Garside had given me for my own, the ring engraved “Mizpah,” that even by the moon’s light sparkled and glistened as I slipt it on to Miriam’s finger.

“No! no! not there. I musn’t wear it there. See, it shall be close my heart,” and she kissed it and slid it within the folds of her dress. “I’ll wear it there, and no one at Burnplatts must see it. Why, there’s men there would rob a church for less than these bright stones. And Granny and Ephraim Oh! I’m feart, I’m feart. Best take it back, Abel, and keep it for me till we’re——,” and then she stopped in sweet confusion.

“Nay let it bide where ’tis. But tell me, Miriam why do you fear?”

“Because ever since I was a little one Granny’s always said I was to wed Ephraim and he, and he—oh! in his wild way I think he loves me. And I’d always taken it for granted that I should be his wife though now I know I didn’t love him. And then you came, and I knew what love is, and it seems strange that ever I should have thought of Ephraim in that way. But, I’m feart, oh! I’m feart—not for myself, but for you, when Ephraim knows the truth. Oh! what should I do if harm came to you, if my love should be your curse?”

Of course I chided her for her groundless fears, a lass’s whimsies I called them, and, clasping her in a long embrace, bade her banish her gloomy thoughts and leave it to me to win our way to the sweet fulfilling of our love.

“Then there’s that horrid man at the Wakes,” she faltered. “It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to me, though he never touched me before.”

“What, Tom o’ Bills, o’ th’ ‘Moorcock’?”

Now “the Moorcock Inn” is a little public house high up above Greenfield on the slope from the road that crosses the hills from Lancashire into Yorkshire, and there resided Bill o’ Jack’s, innkeeper and gamekeeper, a wizened, crafty, old sinner, whose grey hairs were not venerable, with an evil heart and a foul tongue. More often than not Bill’s son, Tom, was to be found at the Inn, when not striding the moors or tippling in the hostelries of Greenfield or Saddleworth. Tom, too, was a gamekeeper, a burly, blustering bully of a fellow, much given to ale and strong waters, and to coarse amours with the light o’ loves of the country-side, though he had a wife and children of his own living at Sidebank, near Greenfield. It was given out that the poor neglected woman lived there that her children might be near their work at Greenfield Mill; but I fancy Tom o’ Bill’s had less worthy reasons for spending most of his nights at the Moorcock. Father and son were Bradburys—sprung of a good yeoman stock, to be sure, but themselves debauched by the calling they had given their lives to, for I have noted as a strange thing, and not easy to be accounted for, that men whose soul’s ken is limited to a dog and a gun, and the ways of wild birds, and hares, and rabbits, and the vermin that prey on them weasels, and stoats, and the like, are oft tavern-haunters, and dicers, and brawlers, and blasphemers and sons of Belial in many other ways, of which the less said the better. My blood boiled within me at thought of Miriam clasped in that lecher’s arms, his evil eye gloating on her sweet face.

“Perhaps ’twas only the drink,” I said to soothe her, for she trembled as she spoke of Tom o’ Bill’s.

“It isn’t always the drink. He’s as bad when he’s sober. He wants me to go serve at “the Moorcock,” and says he’ll load me with jewels, and I shall live like a lady. He must have the cunning of a fox, for often when I’ve thought for sure I’d given him the go-bye in my journeys across the moor he’s sprung from behind a wall or risen sudden from the heather. And I think it’s because of me he’s so down on Ephraim. He’s boasted in his cups that he’ll never rest till he has the King’s bracelets on Ephraim’s wrists and him sent to the Plantations. There’s evil blood between them, and I fear me there’ll be blood let if things go on”—and she shivered in my arms.

“This isn’t Ephraim’s business now; it’s mine,” I declared. But she clung to me, and bade me if I loved her give the Bradburys a wide berth. I soothed her with smooth sayings, but made no promise, for it seemed a hard thing that in this fair England of ours a maiden even a Burnplatter should be evilly entreated and not a constable bold enough to do the work he was paid for. It was an old saying in those days that gamekeepers and the constables were thick as thieves, and that a brace of grouse or a hare at Christmas time could close the mouth and eyes of the constables who were so quick to clap a poor weaver in the stocks if he got quarrelsome in his cups and the Justices on the Bench were as bad as the keepers, sportsmen, and game preservers to a man, except perhaps the Vicar of St. Chad’s, and he was too butty with his brother justices to thwart them in their handling of the men the keepers hauled before them. But I’d a notion of English law amid justice, and I thought Parson Holmes’s son could hold his own even against a keeper.

I set no great store by myself, as indeed why should I, but I had a great opinion of my father’s name and calling. Why, even the Vicar of St. James’s had been heard to speak respectfully of the pastor of Pole Moor ever since the day when that incumbent had written a lengthy epistle to my father anent the laying on of hands, couched in the Greek tongue, thinking, maybe, so to humiliate my father, and the doughty little minister, not to be outdone, had replied at twice the length, not, to be sure, in Greek, but in Hebrew!

I walked home that night, ’twixt gloam and moon, in a world bewitched. I forgot all about Jim, about my father, about Ruth, doubtless racking their brains in vain, wondering why I did not return to supper.

I walked across the moors and right on to Wrigley Mill Fold in a dream. Ah! love is your only wizard. It touches the eyes of maid and man, and lo! there is a new world that holds nothing commonplace, nothing tawdry, nothing mean. The heart that throbs with love’s exquisite pain knows no fear but that it lose its love. Here was I, but just free of my indentures, with no craft in my hand but that of a poverty-knocker all my worldly gear on my back, and plighted to a girl that all the men and women I had been taught to reverence and take pattern by, the men and women who made my little world, would look askance upon. And was I a whit dismayed? Not I i’ faith. I’d youth, and strength, and health, knit muscles, and a clear head, and crowning gift of all, a loved one’s love. Fear! I laughed at obstacles. I was the lord of Destiny.

Mary has often told me since that when took the door that night my face shone as though transfigured and that she knew all of a crack, as she put it that my feet had trod the Mount Delectable and my eyes seen the golden strand. But all she said was:

“And wheer’s our Jim? I’ll be bun he’s ca’ed Gate. I should ha’ thought ’at after being at Pole Moor an’ listenin’ to two guid sarmons he could ha’ come streight whom, gooid Sunday neet as it is, an’ all. But theer, some women has th’ beck on it, an’ some hannot, an’ there’s an’ end on it. Theer’s Betty Haley’s Matthy can lead th’ prayer meetings an’ pray for hauf an hour at a spell, rollin’ up th’ whites o’ his e’en an’ callin’ on th’ Spirit till he’s awmost hoarse, an’ now they sen he’s to be put on th’ Plan an’ be a pudden parson,(a local preacher) an’s getten up Mrs. Wrigley’s sleeve, an’ oo’s nagging at th’ owd felly to put him forrard i’ th’ mill, an’ he’ll be an ovver-seer an’ happen a peartner, th’ sallow-faced, greasy windbag ’at he is. An’ aw’m sure, though aw say it ’at suddent, aw’m as gooid a woman onny day as Betty Haley ivver were, as yo’n nowt to do but look at her house to see. Cleanliness is next to godliness, mi owd mother used to say, an’ aw’n getten cleanliness onnyroad, an’ that’s more nor Betty Haley can say or ivver could.” and here Mary was fain to pause for breath.

And from this outpouring I knew that Mary had been to the service in the Warping Room at Wrigley Mill. My employer’s good lady, having had high words with the Vicar’s wife about some parish matter—so ’twas said at all events—had shaken dust of St. Chad’s from her very substantial feet, and had started a Methodist in a room above the counting-house, which, on week days, was used for warping the yarn. Matthew Haley was one of the hands, a black-headed bilious looking man, much suspected by the other workpeople of carrying tales to the counting-house But he’d as much gab as a Philadelphia lawyer, and having, as he put it, “raised his Ebenezer” in the upper chamber at Wrigley Mill, was now become a bright and shining light in the little congregation which consisted almost exclusively of the millpeople. He was Mary’s particular aversion, however, and she, who, had known Matthy’s mother from a girl, never ceased to wonder that a child of Betty’s should to all seeming be born to grace whilst her own lad should openly scoff at Matthy’s perfervid supplications.

“Why, Mary,” I said, when I could at length get in a word edgeways, “you wouldn’t swop your Jim for Matthy Haley, would you?”

“No, that aw wouldn’t. Not if they’d gi’ me all Wrigley Mill to booit—a nasty, greasy,”—I think Mary meant unctuous—“slimy, creeping, sneck-liftin’, underhand tittle-tattler. But it does go agen th’ grain to think ’at sich as him s’ud be thrusten forrard an’ stond i’ th’ high places o’ th’ synagogue, so to speak, when a proper, straightforrard, guid-hearted lad like y’er Jim, ’at wouldn’t hurt a flea, ’is put dahn as nowt. Aw tell yo’ what it is, Abe, aw’ve wintered an’ summered some th’ fo’k i’ Diggle ’at nivver missed nother Chapel nor Sunday School sin Mrs. Wrigley too’ up wi’ th’ Methodies, an’ all aw can say is if God Almighty cannot see through ’em, it’s time some’un up an’ oppened His e’en for Him.”

“Don’t yo’ fret yourself, Mary,” I assured her. “God is not mocked, an’ I’d rather stand with Jim on the last day than with many a Wrigley Mill saint, aye, even if he’d a pint pot in his hand.” And so Mary’s wrath simmered down, though from the way she gave the occasional slap with her thible at the porridge as she stirred it on the hob, I judged that in imagination she was venting her wrath on the unconscious Matthy.

Jim sauntered in just as Mary and I drew to table, and mollified his mother by the hearty way he handled his spoon.

“There’s nowt like a gooid sermon an’ a gooid walk ’at after it for gi’ing’ a man a relish for his victuals,” he declared. “An’ if yo’ want a gooid sarmon wi’in ten mile o’ Wrigley Mill yo’ mun go to Pole Moor for it. What do’st say, mother, if we join th’ Baptists?”

“Tha were browt up Church,” reminded his mother.

“Aw’m noan so sure they’n getten th’ rooit o’ th’ matter,” quoth Jim, wagging his head gravely, as he scraped the sides of the bowl with his spoon. “Aw’m noan fully decided i’ my own mind. It tak’s a deal o’ thinkin’ ovver, an’ aw think it ’ud nobbut be fair to tak’ St. Chad’s and Pole Moor turn an’ turn abaat till I’m fair settled one road or t’other—th’ church i’ t’ mornin’ an’ t’ chapel at neet. What says ta, Abe?”

“Why, you never get up in time for morning service,” I said.

“Weel, when aw missed th’ Church, aw could mak’ up for it bi stoppin’ to th’ prayer meetin’ at neet,”

“It’s a far cry to Pole Moor,” I objected.

“Not it, marry. Your Ruth says there’s folk go to Pole Your fro Meltham an’ owd ’uns at that.”

“Oh! If Ruth wants you to go…”

“Nay, nay, not ’oo. ’Oo only mentioned it casual like,”

I shrugged my shoulders. I had my own notions, I daresay Jim had in later years.

“But, onny road,” concluded Jim, “aw’st noan join Matthy’s lot. He come to me ’t other day when aw were tunin’ a loom an’ swearin’ a bit to missen, which some o’ them looms ’ud mak’ a parson swear, an’ he towd me to my face he never missed a neet but he took me to the Lord i’ prayer. Aw towd him I knew there was a mule i’ th’ garden somegate, an’ if he didn’t stop it aw’d poise his soul out.” And Jim pulled off his boots with a mighty grunt of relief—he swore by clogs as the only footgear for human wear—and lumbered heavily to bed.

CHAPTER V.

I BECOME A CONSPIRITOR.

IT must, I think, have been about the end of September. I had gone as usual to the Mill a couple of hours before our baggin (breakfast), but had had to jack work because of some accident to the water-wheel. Jim was throng in the millrace, but I had perforce an idle day on my hands, and avowed to Mary my intention of taking a long walk over the moors. She said I might as well make myself useful and bring her a can of barm for that week’s baking, with a cupful to spare for the home-brewed; and no better barm was to be had, she declared, than that they scummed at the Moorcock. The Bradburys, father and son, she conceded, might be the devil’s own spawn for ought she knew or greatly cared, but sell good barm they did; and if I wanted to stretch my long legs to more purpose than sprawling in front of the kitchen fire or strolling idly about the lanes I could do no better than take up by Holly Grove and cut across the fields towards Pots and Pan’s and thence to the Moorcock at Bill’s o’ Jack’s.

We had said not a word to Mary about the incident at the Wakes, so I had no decent excuse to put forward when she produced her quart can and sent me for on my errand.

It was a glorious day; we were having a splendid autumn, dry and warm, just the weather for a climb up the hills. I had the day before me, the rare treat of an extra holiday, the price of a luncheon of bread and cheese—with an onion—and a pint of ale, in my pocket, youth and health, a sunlit sky, the pure, fresh air of the far-flung moors, sweet thoughts of Miriam to warm my heart and many a scheme for the future to busy my brain—what more could man ask of life?

Once off the road above the Workhouse I went in a bee-line for Pots and Pans, that cluster of huge boulders, black with age, and worn by the countless storms they had weathered since first the morning stars sang together—Jim said they had been left on their exalted bed after being bundled about by the Flood before the waters subsided and stranded Noah on Ararat: but, then, Jim had also a theory, in support of which he advanced many cogent arguments, that the huge rocks that cap the hills on either side of the valley-head at Bill’s 0’ Jack’s had been used as missiles when Gog stood on one hill and hurled them across the intervening ravine in some titanic contest with Magog—else why, he shrewdly asked, were these summits dubbed Gog and Magog to this day; there must be a reason for it and what so likely as that. Idly revolving many and various thoughts I at length crossed the great steep, somewhat blown, and fain to doff my cap and let the cooling breeze blow about my brow. I sat down in the shadow of one of the crags, against which I stretched my long legs in great ease and content, and what with the warmth and the pleasant weariness of my stiff climb, I presently nodded off to sleep.

How long I sat there I cannot say, but when I woke, which fortunately I did gradually and without the start one gives when the buzzer goes, wakefulness coming gently and quietly, as daybreak lifting the clouds, I became aware that I had no longer Pots and Pans to myself; and the consciousness that I was trespassing, and the knowledge that trespassers were ill-brooked when the grouse were about, suggested that if I had not as yet been observed ’twere just as well not to obtrude my presence. So I closed my eyes and lay low. But I kept my ears open.

“It’s no use thee talkin’, feyther, I’m bent on it,” I heard, “so tha may as well keep thi breath to cool thi porridge. I’st ha’ that lass if aw dee for it.”

“What dost ta mean? Tha cannot wed her, and if tha could tha’d be a fooil to put a rope raand thee nah. Tha’d rue it nobbut once, Tom, an’ that’d be all thi life after th’ fust week or two.

“Aw said nowt abaat weddin’ her. Aw sud think twice afore I put a ring on to a Burnplatter’s finger.”

“Tha’rt none talkin’ o’ that black-haired wildcat o’ a gipsy wench tha gate sich a mauling ovver at th’ Wakes?”

“Aye, but I am.”

“Well, everyone to his fancy, as th’ woman said when ’oo kissed th’ now. By gow, lad, thou’lt have a handful wi’ yon spitfire. ’Oo’d knife thee as soon as look at thee, if tha crossed her. More bi token tha’ll have all th’ Burnplatter’s to reckon wi if owt went wrong. They all hang together, aw’ll say that for ’em. An’ what does th’ lass say to ’t?”

“Winnot look th’ side o’ th’ road aw’m on. Treats me as if aw were th’ dirt under her feet. Starts off like a filly if ’oo sees mi shadow.”

“Happen that’s nobbut to ’tice thee on. By gow a Burnplatter ’ll think twice afore ’oo turns up her nose at Tom o’ Bill’s, tho’ to be sure tha’rt a bit on th’ downgrade as years go. It’s softer liggin at th’ Moorcock than ivver ’oo’s known at Burnplatts an’ for jumping ovver a broomstick, why, there’s more of ’em does it nor ivver stands afore th’ parson. All th’ same, aw doubt tha’rt brewin’ trouble for thissen, an all for a wench tha’llt tire of i’ no time an’ maybe won’t find easy to shut as an owd shoe. Them tally women sticks like a burr to a gradely felly wi’ a good whom to his back. Tha met ha’ bidden my time out; but if tha’rt set on makkin’ a rod for thi own back, what’s to hinder thee?”

“Aw’n yerd ’oo’s trothed to Ephraim o’ Burnplatts,” came the reply, “an’ if it’s true there’ll be a tussle for ’t; he’s an ugly customer to tackle is Ephraim. If he were aat o’ th’ gait aw sud stand a better chance. Aw wish aw cud land him safe i’ Botany Bay, an’ be damned to him.”

“Well, that sud be easy enew, if we set yar wits to wark. Let me think. Eh! Tom, lad, thi owd feyther’s to ha’ brains for both on us yet.”

There was a prolonged silence betwixt the twain, a silence you may be sure I did not break. Indeed, I was in a cold sweat of apprehension, for I knew if I were caught eavesdropping I should have short shrift, and would have to thank my stars if I got off with nothing worse than sore bones.

Then the old man spoke: “Isn’t it th’ October Fair i’ Huthersfilt next week?”

“Aye, tha knows that wi’out me tellin’ thee.” He was a surly brute, to be sure, was Tom o’ Bill’s, but then his was scarce a reverend sire.

“What o’ t?”

“Why nobbut this. Eph. o’ Burnplatts is sewer to be theer doin’ a bit o trade i’ th’ galloways them Irish drovers bring ovver th’ watter, an’ he’ll, ten to one, be makkin’ his way whom to Burnplatts ovver Crosland Moor latish on i’ th’ neet, an’ takkin’ both sides o’ th’ road at that, a bit an’ aboon market fresh. He’ll ha’ to pass through Squire Radcliffe’s plantation, aboon th’ Brigg tha knows, an’ monny a bonnie hare’s been knocked o’ th’ yead i’ that copse.”

“Well, get on, aw’m hearkenin’. What are ta gettin’ at?”

“Weel, if yo’ an’ me happened, just bi chance like, to bi watchin’ i’ th’ Plantation just as he went through, an’ caught him red-handed wi’ a brace o’ hares faand i’ his pocket when we’d knocked him dateless after a desperate struggle.”

“An’ how the guisehang could he ha’ a brace o’ hares i’ his pocket comin’ thro’ Huthersfilt Fair?”

“Oh! Tom, Tom, tha’llt nivver be the man thi feyther’s bin. Why, if so be he hasn’t a brace on him, that’s no reason we suddn’t find ’em i’ his pockets if we tuk care to put ’em theer oursen when we’ve quieted him. We sud produce ’em i’ court, an’ seein’s believin’. ‘Sensation i’ Coort!’ that’s what th’ pappers ’ll say. It’ll be a ‘Sizes job or a Sessions job for Ephraim then, an’ if aw know owt o’ th’ laws o’ our great an’ free country, it’ll be monny a long year an’ after before either thee or yon gipsy wench ’ll set een on him agen.”

“It saands all reet, it saands all reet. Aw’ll sleep on it, feyther. Come, let’s be goin’. Aw’m dry, an’ th’ dinner ’ll be spoilin’. Let’s to whom an’ think on it.” And the worthy pair, gun under arm, picked their way across the heather towards Bill’s o’ Jack’s. It may be guessed that I was in no ways inclined to follow them. Mary’s barm went clean out of my mind, but if I’d had to go without home-brewed “for the rest of my natural,” as folk say, I wouldn’t have shown my face within the doors of “the Moorcock” that day.

Instead I faced right about, and made my way to run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. My first thought was to hunt up Ephraim and put him on his guard. My second and better to talk the matter over with my father. Here was a plot to cast an innocent man into prison; one of the law-less tribe, to be sure, for whom a good many people thought prison wasn’t bad enough, but a tribe my father regarded as to some extent part of the flock confided to his keeping, and I thought he ought to be taken into counsel. I’ll confess that just for one moment the thought flashed across my mind that if Eph. were, by whatever diabolic device, put out of Tom o’ Bill’s way he would by the same stroke be put out of mine, and the gamekeeper would have the sorry work of pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the parson’s son. But I scouted this devil’s whisper without ado. However bad Ephraim might be, and were he ten times as dangerous a rival for Miriam’s hand and heart he should not fall into this snare, and Bill o’ Jack’s and Tom o’ Bill’s should be hoist with their own petard, if human wit could compass it.

I found my father deep immersed in the preparation of his next Sabbath’s discourse, and of this his mind was so full that I had, with what patience I could assume, perforce to lend him my ears, though I fear not much of my mind, whilst he recapitulated the heads of his sermon. This weighty matter at length dismissed the good man lighted his pipe, bade Ruth bring in a measure of home-brewed and settled himself in his chair to learn what had brought me over to Pole Moor of a weekday (wart day we called it), when I ought by right to have been tending my loom at Wrigley Mill. Ruth had perched herself saucily on the arm of the old oak chair in which he sat and idly straightened his thin grey locks whilst he listened to my tale.

“There’s only one thing to be done,” said my sire, when I had told my story. “Our course is clear. I must at once to Burnplatts and see that misguided youth, Ephraim, and impress it upon him that he must pretermit the October Fair, or if that be not practicable, must return home by some other route, be it never so ungain; indeed, the ungainer the better. Likewise I can improve the occasion by enjoining him to abandon courses that expose him to the guile and snares of the officers of the law. Perchance the seed may fall upon prepared ground. Though truth to say I do not at the moment recall any text of the Scriptures that seems to be directed at the poachers of wild game. Though to be sure the Psalmist’s prayer, ‘Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength,’ seems apt. Yes, assuredly, it fits the occasion like the heft to the blade. Let me see, I could divide my discourse as follows….” And the excellent pastor was already busy in his thoughts projecting the word in season.

“But, father,” quote Ruth, “what about the Bradburys?”

“Aye, aye, to be sure, my daughter. You do well to recall me to a pressing duty. I must from Burnplatts to the Moorcock Inn and beard the lion, nay the lion and his whelp, in their den. Here, happily, I shall go armed with the sword of the Word, for it teemeth with denunciations of those who bear false witness against their neighbours, and tells how the counsels of the wicked shall be brought to nought. To be sure Bill’s o’ Jack’s is out of my parish, yet where the wicked are to be thwarted who shall set bounds and measures for the servant of the Lord?” And my father glared enquiringly round the room, as though challenging an imaginary audience to deny his right to speak the Word in season when and where he would. Of his right within the wide expanse watered by the Colne he made no question—he had come to regard it as his spiritual own, his vineyard, his parish.

“That’s all very well, father,” commented Ruth, “and doubtless you could speak to the Burnplatters and the Bradburys to their eternal profit. But I’ve a better plan; one that will keep Ephraim Sykes out of harm and cover those who plot his destruction with confusion. Now you two, listen to me. A woman’s wit, you know, can jump over a wall whilst a man is groping round for a gate.”

And my father listened meekly, for he loved Ruth as the apple of his eye, and she now had her way with him. Then Ruth unfolded her plan, and as I listened I rubbed my hands together gleefully, and when it stood revealed in all its completeness, clapped Ruth on the back and declared with conviction that such a headpiece was thrown away on a woman and she ought to have been ’prenticed to a ’torney, a compliment that Ruth received with deprecating modesty, and clearly not ill-pleased, though, to be sure, it was one of our most rooted and cherished convictions that all attornies were sons of the Father of Lies, and bound to end up in the brimstone lake. Yet have I ever noticed that—such is the perverseness of human nature—a man, and not less a woman, would rather be set down as monstrous clever, and in some danger of the Judgment, than ranked as a fool and a dullard though conceded to be a saint. Now what Ruth’s plot was I must not, nor need, disclose, but you who read what ensued when Ephraim Sykes was brought up before the Bench at Huddersfield on a charge of trespassing in pursuit of game, a few days after the October Fair, will I think probably divine.

I think the little Justices’ Court at the market town cannot often have been so crowded as it was that day. All Burnplatts was there, and many a sturdy rogue, and vagabond assisted as a spectator who oft aforetime had played the part of leading villain in some petty drama in that shabby forum. And all Pole Moor and half Slaithwaite to boot. For the due development of Ruth’s scheming had required that we should take into our confidence one of my father’s sedate deacons, old Enoch Hoyle, of Merry Dale. Enoch had been vowed to silence, but he confessed afterwards that he was so big with the part that had been assigned to him that twenty times a day he had had to stop his hand-loom to laugh joyously to himself, and that she had so often alarmed his next-door neighbour by breaking out into smothered chuckling that he had been concerned for his mind’s health, and had threatened to fetch Dr. Dean to him and have him sent to “th’ ’Sylum.” Then, after drawing an awful picture of what would befall if he ever muffed about the matter to a single soul, he let the good soul into the secret; and it’s a mercy a good few miles of wild moorland lay between Merry Dale and Bill’s o’ Jack’s, or all our plotting had been in vain. So well-nigh all Slaithwaite was in the Court-room or, baulked in the endeavour to squeeze inside, waited the result patiently in the street or the adjacent inn. Ephraim, of course, was there, and in custody of constables. Two days and two nights had he lain in Towzer, as they called the Lock-up, and a merry time he had had of it, by all accounts, being in no lack of food and drink, and treating his custodians so lavishly that they were to be excused if they wished they might retain him as a permanent guest. Bill o’ Jack’s and Tom o’ Bill’s were clad in velveteen coats and drab gaiters, and Tom dangled on his hand a brace of hares bigger and plumper than any hares I had ever set eyes on before. They’d got Mr. Alison for their attorney, and I watched that ferret-faced limb of the law with not a little concern, for he looked so cock-sure of winning his case, when he rose to open it to the magistrates, and they listened with so evident a trust to every word he said, that my heart misgave me. It was a very clear case, said Mr. Alison. The prisoner had been caught in flagrante delicto; he was a suspicious character whose antecedents alone where enough to convict him, and he was the ringleader of a notorious gang of pestilent knaves who had too long been suffered to prey upon society. However, it was a true saying that the jug went off to the well, but got broke at last. The prisoner had had many a narrow escape, but now he stood in the dock on a charge supported by the clearest and directest evidence, and society for some years would doubtless be rid, and well rid, of a most dangerous character. The information had been laid by Thomas Bradbury, a gamekeeper residing with his wife and family at Greenfield, but better known as of the Moorcock Inn at Bill’s o’ Jack’s, though in fact that hostelry was kept by his venerable father. Doubtless both father and son were known to their Worships, and they would know them as zealous servants of the law. Theirs was a most necessary and also a most dangerous calling—necessary, for what would England be if the gentry were robbed of their sport, and dangerous because it exposed them to the violence of the lawless Poachers who preyed upon the preserves so much wealth was lavished in maintaining. Sport, gentlemen, was a sacred institution. It had made Englishmen—of the higher classes—what they were and England what it was, and must be ranked in sanctity with Church and State. But that topic he would not enlarge, though it was one very near and dear to his heart, as doubtless it was to the hearts of their Worships (and, indeed, by the looks of them he spoke the truth there), He would not waste the time of the Court by any prolix opening. The facts would speak for themselves and the facts would best appear from the mouths of the unimpeachable witnesses he would place in that box before them. Call Thomas Bradbury.

Then Tom o’ Bill’s stepped heavily into the box, placed the two poor dead hares conspicuously in front of him, kissed the greasy little Testament with a smack, touched his forehead respectfully to the magistrates, and turned an attentive face to the little attorney.

“Your name is Thomas Bradbury, and you are a gamekeeper residing at Sidebank on the turnpike road between Greenfield and Bill’s o’ Jack’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your father is William Bradbury, and he keeps the Moorcock Inn at Bill’s o’ Jake’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, on the afternoon of the 16th inst., were you at the Huddersfield Fair?

“Yes, sir. Me an’ mi feyther.”

“Exactly; your venerable and respected father was with you. What were you doing there?”

“We’d gone to see how pigs went.”

“And did you see the prisoner there?”

“We did.”

“You mean you did. You mustn’t tell us what your father saw. He’ll speak for himself.”

“Beg pardon, sir.”

“Had you known the prisoner before?”

“This many a year. I’ve had my eyes on him a long time.” And here Tom shot a venomous look at Ephraim, who stood in the dock looking as pleasant as though he was at his own wedding, and who acknowledged Tom’s look by a beaming and encouraging smile.

“Most unbecoming levity,” I heard one of the magistrates whisper to a brother justice.

“Well, I’m afraid I mustn’t ask you what sort of a character the prisoner bears. I daresay my learned friend would object.”

Now, “my learned friend” was Mr. Blackburn, whom my father had fee’d to appear for Ephraim a tall, portly man, who would have made two of Mr. Alison. A sleepier-looking mortal I never saw. I could have found it in my heart to stick a pin in him that morning, for he sprawled rather than sat in his place at the attornies’ table, with his hands in his pockets his eyes closed, and seeming to take no interest at all in what was going on, whilst my heart was all of a flutter, and I could scarce keep still for a minute at a time. He half opened his eyes now.

“You know very well you mustn’t ask as to character. Can’t hang a man on his character, else some of us would stand a poor chance.”

A constable sniggered, then looked sternly at the back of the Court and bawled, indignantly, “Silence in Court.”

“I’m glad my learned friend has so just an appreciation of the gravity of his position,” quoth Mr. Alison, and the Chairman of the Bench smiled; and at that all the constables felt at liberty to laugh, and so, of course, did not a few of the spectators. But Mr. Blackburn had apparently gone to sleep again.

“Did you see the prisoner leave the town on the evening of that day?”

“Yes, sir, about seven o’clock.”

“What sort of a night was it?”

“Pretty dark, but fineish. There’d been some smartish rain during th’ afternoon, but it had cleared”

“By which way did the prisoner go?”

“On the Upperhead Row, down Outcote Bank, onto th’ Brigg, an’ then up Crosland Moor?”

“Did you and your father follow him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he call anywhere?”

“Yes, sir. We see’d him go in to th’ Warren.”

“What did you do?”

“Me an’ mi feyther went forrard till we come to Radcliffe’s Plantation; an’ aw sez to mi feyther—”

“I’m afraid we can’t hear what you said to your father. My friend would object.”

“Oh! I don’t mind,” said sleepy-sides.

“I don’t think that man minds anything as long as he gets his nap,” I muttered to my father, vindictively, but my father didn’t seem perturbed.

“Well, if my friend doesn’t object. You said to your father—?”

“It’s here he’ll try it on, if he means doing owt to-neet. So we clambered ovver th’ wall into th’ Plantation, just above th’ Warren House.”

“Have you any reason for being sure of the spot?”

“Yes, it were within a yard or two o’ wheer Mr. Horsfall were shot by th’ Luddites i’ th’ Lud time. There’s th’ bullet marks on th’ wall, plain to be seen i’ dayleet.”

“I believe that’s so, your Worships,” said Mr. Alison, and the Chairman nodded assent.

“Well, we cowered down among th’ bracken, and after a bit Ephraim there loped ovver th’ wall. A couple o’ hares started up fro’ th’ cover an’ he downed ’em wi’ his stick, an’ sammed ’em up an’ knocked their yeads agen his booit toes, an’ nipped ’em into his pocket. He weren’t three yards fro’ wheer we legged, an’ his back were to us. So we upped an’ on to him, an’ downed him.”

“Did he struggle much? Did he resist you?”

“He nearly bote mi thumb off, an’ it took both me and mi feyther—he’s an owd man, but varry peert—all us time to howd him till aw slipped the derbies on to him. Then we searched him an’ fun’ these beauties on him. Stock does, they be, an’ a shame for annybody to ha’ killed ’em.”

“Well, I think that’s all I need ask you,” said Mr. Alison, and sat down.

Then Mr. Blackburn rose ponderously, puffing out his tremulous cheeks, and breathing heavily as though he had just come to the surface after a long swim under water. And he wagged a big fat forefinger at Tom o’ Jack’s, and he certainly didn’t look asleep now.

“And all this mighty struggle took place in Mr. Radcliffe’s Plantation?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well within it?”

“Yes, sir; a hundred yards or more.”

“Not on the highroad?”

“Oh, no, sir, else he wouldn’t have been trespassing.”

“Quite so, quite so, a very shrewd and proper remark. All among the bracken, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How was the prisoner dressed?”

“Same as he is now, sir”

“Of course, how stupid of me. He has been in custody ever since, and won’t have concerned himself much about his toilet. You saw him, I think you said, on the Fair during the day.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Several times?”

“Aye, off an’ on, right up to mi feyther an’ me starting for whom. We wanted to be ahead of him so’s to hide ussen afore he reached th’ Plantation.”

Quite so, quite so, a very proper proceeding”—I did wish Mr. Blackburn wouldn’t butter the man up so, but I’d yet to learn that victims are sometimes well greased before being bolted.

“When you saw the prisoner in the Fair did you notice anything peculiar about his appearance?”

“No, nowt out o’ th’ common.”

“Quite spick and span, eh?”

“Aye, he were reet enough.”

“Now look at his clothes. What do you say to them now? Get close to him and examine him from head to foot. Oh, don’t be frightened; the constable will see he doesn’t hurt you”

Tom did as he was bid, but with manifest reluctance.

“Well, what do you say to his clothes now? Spick and span, eh?”

“Nay, they’re mucky enough.”

“Mud-stained from top to toe, aren’t they?”

“Yo’ can see for yersen, can’t yo’,” answered Tom surlily.

“Come, don’t get cross. You don’t look so amiable as you did. Will you please explain to their Worships how it comes that a man whose clothes were spick and span when you saw him at the Fair, and spick and span when he called at ‘The Warren House,’ as I can prove by the landlord, was a mass of mud from head to foot when you landed him at the lock-up?”

“He got it i’ th’ tussle, aw reckon.”

“What, among the rain-washed bracken?”

And Tom stammered and looked this way and that, any way but at Mr. Blackburn, and then lapsed into sulky silence. Mr. Blackburn beamed on him as though he loved him, and said persuasively:

“Now, after all, doesn’t it look as if this terrible tussle took place on the road and not in the Plantation?”

But Tom wouldn’t say yea or nay to this. He only glowered, and Mr. Blackburn, who had now risen vastly in my opinion, glanced meaningly at the Bench, shrugged his massive shoulders, and started on a new tack.

“About these hares now? Stock does, you say they are?”

“Anything particular about them?”

“Not ’at aw know on. What sud there be. A hare’s a hare, an’ that’s all there is to ’t.”

“Have you examined this particular brace?”

“Not I. Why sud aw?”

“Not looked at their teeth?”

“Noa.”

“Well, would you mind doing so now?”

Very gingerly Tom did as he was bid.

“Two front teeth snapped off in each hare, aren’t there? Pass them up to their Worships, constable, and let them see for themselves.”

“It certainly looks as if the two incisors had been snapped sharply off,” said the Chairman. “In each hare, too, most extraordinary.”

“Yes, a strange coincidence,” agreed Mr. Blackburn. “How do you account for it?” he asked suddenly of the gamekeeper.

“It’s none o’ my business,” said Tom surlily. “Aw didn’t come here to be badgered abaat teeth. Aw come here to tell a plain tale, an’ aw done so, an’ yo’ may tak’ it or leave it as yo’ like.”

“Pre-cisely, a plain, unvarnished tale. Just, no doubt, the same plain, unvarnished tale your father, your venerable and most respectable father, will tell. Oh, you needn’t look round the Court for him. He’s in the lobby out of earshot. But about those snapped incisors now. Surely you’ve a theory?”

“Not I”

“Perhaps the animals were mother and daughter, and snapped incisors run in the family,” suggested Mr. Blackburn.

But Tom was in no mood to appreciate a jest. On the contrary, he looked very ill at ease, and, though the day was none of the warmest, wiped the sweat from his flushed and heated brow with the back of his huge hand.

“I’ll bet I could tell what Tom ’ud like better nor a pint o’ ale just nah,” whispered Jim to me.

“What?” I asked.

“Two Pints,” quoth Jim who was evidently on very good terms with himself.

“Well, I think I haven’t much more to ask you, my good man,” Mr. Blackburn was saying, and seemed on the point of sitting down, to Tom o’ Bill’s manifest relief. “Ah, yes, by-the-bye, you may as well tell me as your father—what did you do with the other two hares?”

“Why, we’ve etten——,” began Tom, then grew red as a boiled lobster; “aw mean, what hares are you talking about?”

“Yes, you was saying, ‘you’ve etten’; pray go on. What have you etten?”

“Aw don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Oh! yes you do, my good man, quite well. I’m talking about the two hares your precious father and you had with you that night, and which you intended to place in the prisoner’s pocket after you had stunned him. I can imagine your surprise when you found he actually had two of his own procuring. Come now, don’t keep us in suspense. You say you’ve etten ’em,’ and I can quite believe it. Did they make good eating?”

But Tom was past answering now. He glared dumbly about the Court, and on every face there he read but one tale, the tale the convicted liar reads.

“I’m off out o’ this,” he said, and made to leave the box. “It’s come to something when a game—keeper cannot be backed up i’ th’ discharge o’ his duty.”

“Gently, gently, Mr. Bradbury,” said our attorney pleasantly, as one soothes a fretful child. “Just one or two questions more, and then perhaps we shall have the pleasure of seeing your respected and venerable father. Do you know Pots and Pans?”

“Pots and Pans?” interjaculated the Chairman. “Oh, I remember—the name of the Druid remains above Bill’s o’ Jacks.”

“The same, your Worship.”

“In course aw know th’ spot,” answered Tom briskly. Surely there could be no harm in confessing to a knowledge of that widely known clump of boulders though truth to say, Tom began to feel that no matter how innocent the question might seem it might lead, the deuce knew whither. “What about Pots an’ Pans?”

“Well I think your father, your venerable and respected father, and you were at Pots and Pans about noon of the Friday before Huddersfield Fair?”

“Weel, what if we were? Hannot we a reight?”

“Yes, yes, a perfect right. And I think you had a little conversation about the prisoner there?”

I shall never forget the look of amazed dread with which Tom o’ Bill’s regarded his tormentor. Was the man more than human? he seemed to ask himself. Had he some familiar demon that whispered to him damning secrets?

Then a light burst upon him. “Aw see how it is, th’ owd ’un’s split. My father, mi own feyther’s turned agen me,” he exclaimed, and tottered out of the box, Mr. Blackburn making no sign to stop him.

The magistrates put their heads together.

“We don’t understand all this, Mr. Blackburn,” said the Chairman. “Perhaps you can explain.”

“All in good time, your Worships. Or perhaps my friend’s further witnesses will enlighten us.”

“Call William Bradbury,” said Mr. Alison, but it was clear he was as much perplexed as the magistrates at the turn of events. “Hanged if I know what You’re about with your hares’ teeth and your Pots and Pans,” I heard him mutter to our attorney.

“Better wait and see,” suggested that gentleman blandly.

Old William Bradbury was the next and only other witness for the prosecution. He had been out of court during the examination of his son. He walked to the witness-box with bent shoulders and feeble and faltering steps, leaning heavily upon his stick. The impression he designed to convey was clearly that of extreme age and debility, badly mauled in the discharge of duty. He told his story, the same tale as that unfolded by his son in his examination-in-chief, in a cringing, fawning voice. The course of his cross-examination I need not follow. It went on the same lines as that of Tom. When Mr. Blackburn asked the momentous question as to the conversation between the witness and his son at Pots and Pans the old gamekeeper gasped for breath. His eye wandered to where Tom sat in the body of the Court.

“Oh! you needn’t look for inspiration to your son,” ripped out Mr. Blackburn. “Let us have the tale in your own way.”

“Aw dunnot know what th’ young fooil’s said,” he babbled, “but what ya’r Tom said aw stick to.”

“I daresay, but that won’t do for me. Where is the brace of hares you and your son had with you when you secreted yourself in the warren to await the coming of the prisoner?”

“Wheer does ya’r Tom say they are?” fenced the witness.

“I rather think, he began to say, you’d eaten them.”

“Then etten ’em we han, yo’ may be sewer.”

“And what about those you’ve produced? Have you examined their teeth?”

“What han I to do wi’ their teeth?”

“Well, look now, and tell me if the two front teeth in each hare don’t appear to have been snapped off.”

Old William took up a dead hare and bared its teeth.

“Now the other,” urged Mr. Blackburn. “Well?”

“It looks summat like it, to be sewer,” conceded the gamekeeper.

“Well, what do you make of it?” William scratched his head. Then a light illumined his countenance. “It’ll happen be a birth-mark; that’s it, a birth-mark,—and at a sign from Mr. Blackburn stepped from the box much more nimbly than he had entered it.

“That’s the case, your Worships,” said Mr Alison.

“Now, Mr. Blackburn,” said the clerk.

“I don’t purpose wasting your Worships’ time by any opening remarks. I shall call my witnesses, and after you have heard what they have to say your Worships will have had the story of as pretty a conspiracy to damn an innocent man as has ever been exposed in this or any other Court of Justice. —Holmes.”