George Manville Fenn (continued 4)

“Ah, but father—mother, Dick.”

“They’ll soon come round, like my old lady will.”

“But I couldn’t go, Dick, dear Dick. Do pray speak to father.”

“Not I,” said the young fellow, coolly.

“Then let me, pray let me.”

“No, nor I shan’t let you do that neither. He won’t mind; and I’m not going to be talked to and patted on the back and that sort of stuff. If you love me as you say you do, you’ll listen to what I say.”

Daisy looked at him uneasily, and then turned away her face, sobbing to herself, “Oh, dear.”

“Now then,” continued Dick, “let’s finish our walk.”

“No, no,” sobbed Daisy, “I must go back home now.”

“Not yet you won’t,” he said, angrily.

“But indeed, indeed I must, Dick, dear Dick. Pray don’t speak crossly to me.”

“You get worse and worse,” he said. “There’s always some silly excuse ready.”

“But I must—indeed I must go home now, Dick,” cried Daisy, imploringly.

“And I say you shan’t yet,” said the young man, half angrily, half laughing; and then—“Curse it—there’s that Tom Podmore again, with young Maine. Did you know he was coming?”

“No, no: indeed no,” cried the girl, reproachfully.

“He’s always watching us,” cried Richard, and catching Daisy’s arm, he walked with her rapidly down a path leading to one of the outlets of the wood, where they parted, Daisy hurrying home to be received with a quiet nod by her father, who was just going out, while her mother looked at her curiously as she went to take off her things.

Volume Two—Chapter Three.

Banks’s Obstinacy.

Joe Banks made his way straight through the place to the big house, where, on knocking at the front door, it was evident that he was expected, the girl saying quietly—

“Missus will see you in her room, Mr Banks.”

“All raight, my lass,” said Joe; and he followed the girl into a little room off the hall, where the walls were ornamented with maps and patterns, and shelves bearing rough account books, while here and there stood a dingy-looking wooden model of some piece of machinery.

“Evening, mum,” said Joe, quietly. “I’ve come, as you sent for me; but it ain’t no use. Things are just where they weer, and unless Master Dick comes down, the works will keep shut.”

“I didn’t send for you about that,” said Mrs Glaire, hastily.

“No!” said Joe, quietly.

“No,” said Mrs Glaire, clearing her throat and speaking rather excitedly. “You know I spoke to you once before, Joe Banks, about—about—”

“There, don’t beat about, Missus,” said Joe, with a happy smile spreading over his countenance. “I know, about Master Dick and my Daisy.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire, “and I spoke to my son about it.”

“Did you?” chuckled Joe. “Well, I never spoke a word to my gal.”

“I spoke to my son,” continued Mrs Glaire, “and pointed out the impossibility and impropriety of his proceedings.”

“Did you, though?” chuckled Joe. “Why, lor’ a mercy, Missus, what’s the good o’ being so proud? Flesh and blood’s flesh and blood all the world over.”

“I talked to him earnestly upon the point,” said Mrs Glaire, not heeding the interruption.

“Theer, theer,” said Joe, smiling. “What good was it? why did you do it?”

“And my son saw the force of my remarks, and gave me his promise that he would see Daisy no more.”

“Ah, he did, did he?” chuckled Joe. “He promised you that?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire, angrily; “and he has broken his promise.”

“Of course he has,” said Joe, chuckling. “You might ha’ known it. When a young couple like them comes together, it’s no use for the old uns to try and stop it. They’ll manage it somehow. They’re sure to be too many for you.”

“Joe Banks, you put me out of patience,” cried Mrs Glaire, angrily. “Can you not see how important this matter is?”

“Important? Of course I do,” said Joe, quietly, “a very important step for both of ’em.”

“Listen!” cried Mrs Glaire; “things are coming to a crisis, and for your sake they must be stopped.”

“Strikes me,” said Joe, bluntly, “that you’re thinking a vast more of yourself, Missus Glaire, than of me.”

“I’m thinking of the future of my son and of your daughter, Mr Banks,” said Mrs Glaire.

“So am I,” said Joe, quietly; “but you’re so proud.”

“I tell you, man, that I met them this evening together in the wood,” cried Mrs Glaire. “My son, with Daisy, your child, in his arms.”

“Ah, you did, did you, Missus?” said Joe, chuckling. “He was kissing of her, I suppose.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, indignantly.

“Well, I thought as much,” said Joe, quietly. “The lass had got a rare red face when I met her as she come in.”

“Do you hear what I say?” cried Mrs Glaire angrily. “I say I saw them to-night in the wood, after he had promised me to give her up.”

“Oh, yes,” said Joe, in a calm, unruffled way, “I heard you say so, and if you’d been in the wood every day for the past month, I’d bet you’d ha’ sin ’em. They’re often theer.”

“Joe Banks!” cried Mrs Glaire, half rising from her chair.

“Theer, theer, Missus, what’s the good o’ making a fuss, and being so proud? I’ve give my Daisy a good eddication, and she’s quite a scholard. She can write as pretty a letter as any one need wish to see, and keeps accounts beautiful.”

“Joe Banks, you are blind,” cried Mrs Glaire, passionately. “I want to save your child from shame, and you—”

“Howd hard theer—howd hard theer, Missus,” cried Joe, rising; and his rugged face flushed up. “I respect you, Missus Glaire, like a man, and I don’t wonder as it touches your pride a bit, but I won’t sit here and hear you talk like that theer. My Daisy’s as good and honest a girl as ever stepped, and I’d troost her anywheers; while, as to your son, he’s arbitrary, but you’ve browt him up as a gentleman, and do you think I’m going to believe he means harm by my darling? No, no, I know better.”

“But, you foolish man—”

“Missus Glaire, I won’t call you a foolish woman; I’ve too much respect for you; but I think so, and I think as it isn’t me as is blind, but some one else. Theer, theer, what’s the good of kicking again it. They’ve made up their minds to come together, and you may just as well let ’em by the gainest coot, as send ’em a long ways round. But, theer, Missus, don’t think like that of your own flesh and blood. Why, Missus, am I to respect your son more than you do yoursen?”

“Dick has deceived me,” cried Mrs Glaire, with the tears running down her cheeks.

“Well, but it won’t anser,” said Joe, calming down. “He’s fond o’ the lass, and he was standing ’tween her and you,” he continued, smiling at his own imagery. “You was pulling one way and she was pulling the other, and young love pulled the strongest. Of course it did, as was very natural.”

“Will you send Daisy away, and try and stop it?” cried Mrs Glaire, angrily.

“No, I won’t do neither,” said Joe, stoutly. “Why should I? What call is there for me to go again my master and make my lass miserable, because you think she ain’t good enough for your boy?”

“Then I must act, Joe Banks,” said Mrs Glaire, “for see her he shall not.”

“Theer, theer, what can you do?” chuckled Joe. “Better let things go their own way.”

“I tell you, man, that for your daughter’s sake, you ought to put a stop to this.”

“I can’t stop it,” said Joe, smiling; “nor no one else. You tried, and found you couldn’t, so what could I do? Let ’em alone, and my Daisy shan’t disgrace you; and look here, if it’s money, I’ve got a thousand pounds saved up, and it’s all hers. Theer!”

“Man, man, what can I say to you?” said Mrs Glaire, checkmated by the obstinate faith of Banks in her son.

“Nowt,” said Joe, sturdily; “what’s the good o’ talking? Take my advice, Missus Glaire—let things bide.”

Mrs Glaire wrung her hands in despair as she gazed enviously in the frank, bluff workman’s face, and wished that she could feel the same calm trust in the boy who had been her sole thought for so many years, and as she gazed Joe Banks said sturdily:

“Look here, Missus, no offence meant; but they do say as marriages is made in heaven.”

“Yes, Joe, marriages,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, passionately.

“Well, I weer a-talking about marriages,” said Joe, quietly; “so you take my advice and let things bide.”

“You will not take my advice, Banks,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire. “But, look here, I have warned you, I have begged of you to help me, and you refuse.”

“O’ course I do,” said Joe Banks, sturdily. “I’m not going to fight again my own flesh and blood on a question o’ position. Look here,” he continued, now speaking angrily, “I never was jealous of my old master’s rise in life, and I stuck to him and helped him, and he made me promise to stick by and help his son; and that I’m going to do, for I don’t believe if he’d been alive he’d ha’ been owt but pleased to see his boy make up to my gal. It ain’t my seeking: it’s Master Dick’s. He loves she, and she loves he, and before I’ll step ’twixt ’em, and say as one workman’s son’s too big for the other workman’s daughter, I’ll be—. No, I won’t, not before you, Missus; and now good night, and I wish the strike well ended.”

Joe Banks swung out of the room with all the sturdy independence of a man with a thousand pounds of his own, and then made his way home, while Mrs Glaire sat as it were stunned.

“What can I do? What can I do?” she muttered; and then sat thinking till Eve, looking very pale and ill, walked softly into the room, and knelt by her side, turning up her sad face and red eyes to those of the troubled mother.

“Aunt, dear,” she whispered, “Dick has just come in, and gone up to his room. Shall we ask him to come down to us?”

“What for?” said Mrs Glaire sharply.

“Don’t you think, Aunt, we ought to try and forgive him, and win him back?”

Mrs Glaire rose slowly, and went to a side table, from which she took a Prayer-book, and read from it the sentence beginning, “I will arise,” to the end; and then, laying down the book, she took Eve’s head between her hands, and kissed her white forehead gently.

“Eve, my child, yes, we ought to try and forgive him; I, for his cruel deceit of the woman who gave him birth; you, for his outrage against the woman who was to be his wife. I will forgive him, but he must come—he must arise and come, and seek for pardon first. While you—”

“Oh, Aunt, Aunt,” moaned Eve, hiding her face in the elder’s breast, “I never knew before how much I loved him.”

“And you forgive him, child?”

“Yes, Aunt, I forgive,” said Eve, raising her head, and looking sadly in the elder woman’s face, “I forgive him, but—”

“But what, my child?”

“All that is past now—for ever.”

Mrs Glaire did not speak for a few moments, but stood holding her niece’s hand, looking straight away from her into vacancy, while from above there floated slowly down and entered the room the penetrating fumes of the cigar Dick was smoking in his bedroom, as with his heels upon the table, and a glass of spirits and water by his side, he amused himself by reading a French novel, growling every now and then as he came across some idiom or local phrase which he could not make out, and apparently quite oblivious of the fact that three women were making themselves wretched on his behalf.

Suddenly a low whistle was heard, and Mrs Glaire started.

“What was that?” she exclaimed.

Eve made no reply, but the two women remained listening, while it seemed to them that the sound had also been heard by Dick, who apparently crossed the room, and opened his window.

“He has gone to see what it means,” said Mrs Glaire in a whisper. “I hope the strike people are not out.”

Her head was running upon certain proceedings that had taken place many years before, during her husband’s lifetime, when they had literally been besieged; but her alarm was unnecessary, for had she been in her son’s bedroom, she would have seen that worthy open his window and utter a low cough, with the result that Sim Slee threw up a note attached to a stone, which the young man glanced at, and then said, “All right; no answer,” and Slee went quickly off.

Richard opened the note, glanced through it, and read passages half aloud.

“H’m, h’m. So sorry to leave you as I did.—Heart very sore.—Oughtn’t to meet like that any more.—Pray let her tell father.—They would soon agree if all known.—Will not come any more to be deceitful.”

“Won’t you, my dear?” said Dick, aloud. “We’ll see about that. I think I can turn you round my finger now, Miss Daisy. If not I’m very much mistaken. But we’ll see.”

He finished the note by twisting it up and using it to re-light his cigar, which he sat smoking, and listening as at last he heard his mother and Eve pass his room on their way to bed—the former for the first time in his life, without saying “Good night” to her son.

Volume Two—Chapter Four.

John Maine’s Headache.

“Hallo, Johnny!”

“What, my lively boy.”

“Look at his velveteens.”

“And a silk hankercher too. Arn’t he tip top?”

“Arn’t you down glad to see your old mates again, Johnny?”

“Course he is; look at the tears in his eyes.”

“Hey, mun, why don’t you say you’re glad to see us?”

“And why don’t you speak?”

“Because,” said John Maine, speaking slowly, as he stopped leaning on his thick staff in the middle of the road, “I’m not glad to see you, and I don’t want to speak.”

He looked very stern and uncompromising this young man, half bailiff, half farm servant in appearance, as he stood there in the lane, about a mile from Joe Banks’s house, and facing the men who had kept up the conversational duet, for they were about as ill-looking a pair of scoundrels as a traveller was likely to meet in a day’s march.

The elder of the two carried a common whip, and wore a long garment, half jacket, half vest in appearance, inasmuch as it was backed and sleeved with greasy fustian, and faced with greasy scarlet and purple plush, hanging low over his tightly-fitting cord trousers, buttoned at the ankles over heavy boots, while his head was covered with a ragged fur cap.

The younger man, whose hair was very short, wore the ordinary smock-frock euphoniously termed a “cow-gown,” but as he was journeying, it was tucked up round his hips. This, with his soft wide-awake, and heavy unlaced boots, was bucolic enough, but there the rustic aspect ceased, for his face was sallow; he had a slovenly tied cotton handkerchief round his neck; and as he smoked a dirty, short clay pipe, he had more the aspect of a Whitechapel or Sheffield rough than the ordinary farming man of the country.

Taking them together, they seemed to be men who could manage a piece of horse-stealing, poach, rob a hen-roost, or pay a visit night or day to any unprotected house; and if “gaol” was not stamped legibly on each face, it was because nature could not write it any plainer than she had.

“He’s gotten high in the instep, Ike,” said the last man; “and what’s he got to be proud on?”

“Ah, to be sure, what’s he got to be proud on?” chuckled the other. “He wasn’t always a stuck up one, was he?”

“I say, Johnny,” said the first speaker, “keep that dog o’ yourn away wilt ta, or I might give him something as wouldn’t do him no good.”

“Here, Top, down dog!” said the young man, and a rough-looking dog which had been snuffing round the two strangers showed his teeth a little and then lay down in the dusty road. “I don’t want,” continued the young man, “to be rough on men I used to know.”

“Rough, lad; no, I should think not,” said Ike, of the whip; and he gave it a lash, cutting off the heads of some nettles. “I knew he was all raight, Jem.”

“I said,” continued the young man, “that I didn’t want to be surly to men as I used to know, and if you want a shilling or two to help you on the road, here they are. As for me, I’ve dropped all your work, and taken to getting an honest living.”

“Oh, ho, ho!” laughed Ike, of the whip, giving it another flick, and making the dog jump. “Dost ta hear that, Jem?”

“Ay, lad, I hear him,” said Jem, of the smock-frock, hugging himself as if afraid to lose what he considered particularly good; “I’m hearing of him. But come along, John; we won’t be hard on such a honest old boy. Show us the way to the dram-shop, or the nearest public, and we’ll talk old times over a gill or two o’ yale.”

“You are going one way. I’m going the other,” said John Maine, uneasily, for just then Tom Podmore passed him, with big Harry, both of whom stared hard, nodded to him, and went on.

“Just hark at him, Ike,” said Jem. “He’s a strange nice un, he is. Why, I’m so glad to see him that if he goes off that-a-way I shall stop in Dumford and ask all about him, and where he lives and what he’s a doing.”

John Maine turned cold, while the perspiration stood upon his forehead, for just then Sim Slee came along in the other direction, eyed the party all over, and evidently took mental notes of what he saw.

“What is it you want of me?” said the young man, hoarsely.

“Want, lad?” said Ike; “we don’t want nowt of him, do we, Jem? We’re only so glad to see an old mate again, that we don’t know hardly how to bear it.”

“That’s it, Ike,” said Jem. “And don’t you think as he’s stuck up, mind you. See how glad he is to see his owd mates again. Say, Johnny, ‘It’s my delight of a shiny night,’ eh?”

“Hush!” exclaimed John Maine, starting.

“All right,” said Jem. “Got a pipe o’ ’bacco ’bout you?”

John Maine took a tobacco-pouch from his pocket, and held it out to the speaker, who refilled his dirty pipe, looked the pouch all over, and then transferred it to his pocket.

“Look here, Ike,” said the fellow then, “we won’t keep Johnny any longer. He’s off out courting—going to see his lass. Don’t you see the bood in his button-hole. He’ll see us again when he comes to look us up, for we shall pitch down in one of the pooblics.”

“Raight you are, lad; he’ll find us out. Do anything now, Johnny? Ought to be a few hares and fezzans about here. Good-bye, Johnny, lad; give my love to her.”

The two men went off laughing and talking, leaving John Maine gazing after them, till they disappeared round a bend of the lane on the way to Dumford, when brushing the perspiration from his face with one hand, he staggered away, kicking up the dust at every step till he reached a stile, upon which he sank down as if the elasticity had been taken out of his muscles. His head went down upon his hands, his elbows upon his knees, and there he remained motionless, with the dog sitting down and watching him intently, after trying by pawing and whining to gain his master’s attention.

Neither John Maine nor his ill-looking companions had gone far, before a head and shoulders were raised slowly up over the hedge, so that their owner could peer over and look up and down the lane. The countenance revealed was that of Thomas Brough, the keeper, who had evidently been sitting on the other side, partaking of his rural lunch, or dinner; for as he parted the green growth, to get a better view, it was with a big clasp knife, while his other hand held a lump of bread, ornamented with bacon.

He spoke the next moment with his mouth full, but his words were quite audible as he said—

“I thowt that thar dog would ha’ smelt the rat, but a didn’t. So I hadn’t got you now, Jack Maine, hadn’t I? I’m a rogue, am I, Jack? I sold the Squire’s rabbuds, did I? and pocketted t’ money, did I? Wires, eh? Fezzans and hares, eh? Now, what’ll old Bultitude and Miss Jess say to this? I’ll just find out what’s your little game.”

He strode hastily off, parting the hazels, and making a short cut across the copse, while John Maine sat on the stile thinking.

What was he to do—what was he to do? Were all his struggles to be an honest man to be in vain? Yes, he had joined parties in poaching, down about Nottingham, but he had left it all in disgust, and for years he had been trying to be, and had been, an honest man. He had lived here at Dumford four years—had saved money—was respected and trusted—he was old Bultitude’s head man; and now these two scoundrels—men who knew of his old life—had found him out, they would expose him, and he should have to go off right away to begin the world afresh.

“I’ve tried enew; I’ve tried very hard,” he groaned. “I left all that as soon as I saw to what it tended, and knew better; and now, after all this struggle, here is the end.”

What was the use? he asked himself; why had he tried? What were honesty and respectability, and respect to such as he, that he should have fought for them so hard, knowing that, sooner or later, it must come to this?

What should he do? The words kept repeating themselves in his brain, and he asked himself again, What?

Suppose he told them all at the farm—laid bare the whole of his early life, how he had found himself as a boy thrown amongst poachers. It had been no fault of his, for he had hated it—loathed it all. Suppose he told Mr Bultitude—what then?

Yes, what then? Old Bultitude would say—“We’re all very sorry for you here, but if it got about that I’d kept a regular poacher on my farm, what would the squire say? And what about my lease?” And Tom Brough! Good heavens, if Tom Brough should learn it all!

It was of no use; that man would blast his character gladly, and the end of it all was that he must go!

Yes, but where? Where should he go? Somewhere to work for awhile, and get on, and then live a life of wretchedness, expecting to see some old associate turn up and blast his prospects. No; there was no hope for such as he! All he could do was to join some regiment at Lincoln or Sheffield, enlist—get on foreign service, and be a soldier. A man did not want a character to become a good soldier.

And about Jessie?

His head went lower, and he groaned aloud as this thought flashed across his mind, for his load seemed more than he could bear.

“Anything the matter, John Maine?”

The young man leaped up to find himself face to face with Mr Selwood, whose steps had been inaudible in the dusty road, and John Maine’s thoughts had been too much taken up for him to notice the whine of recognition by the dog, who had leaped up and ran forward to welcome the vicar.

“Bit of a headache, sir, bad headache—this heat, sir,” stammered the young man.

“Liver out of order—liver—not a doubt about it,” said the vicar. “What a strange thing it is nature couldn’t make a man without a liver and save him all his sufferings from bile. Come along with me to the Vicarage. I’m getting in order there now, and I’ll doctor you, and go and tell Mr Purley myself that I’ve been poaching on his preserves. Why, what’s the matter, man?”

John Maine had started as if stung at certain of his latter words.

“Bit giddy, sir; strange and bad now it’s come on,” he stammered.

“That’s right; you’re better now. Sitting with your head down. I’ll doctor you—no secrets: tincture of rhubarb, citrate of magnesia, and a little brandy. I’ll soon set you right. You mustn’t be ill. This is cricket night, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir; but they haven’t played since the strike.”

“Perhaps they will to-night, and I shall come to the field. Well, come along.”

“But really, sir—I—that is—”

“Now look here, John Maine, I’m the spiritual head of the parish, and you must obey me. I can’t help being a man of only your own age—I shall get the better of that. Now if I had been some silver-headed old gentleman, you would have come without a word; so come along. I’ll go back. You are decidedly ill—there’s no mistake about it.”

To John Maine’s great surprise, the vicar took his arm, and half led him back towards Dumford, chattering pleasantly the while.

“I met Mr Simeon Slee as I came along, and he cut me dead. He’s a very nice man in his way, but I’m afraid he works so hard with his tongue, it takes all the strength out of his arms.”

“He’s strange and fond o’ talking, sir,” said John Maine.

“Yes; but words are only words after all, and if they are light and chaffy, they don’t grow like good grain. Bad thing this strike in the town, Maine. Lasted a month now.”

“Very bad, sir.”

“Ah, yes. You agricultural gentlemen don’t indulge in those luxuries, and I’m glad to see that the farm people are very sober.”

“Yes, sir, ’cept at the stattice and the fair.”

“Stattice?” said the vicar, inquiringly.

“Yes, sir, status—statute-hiring, you know, when the servants leave. They call it ‘pag-rag’ day here.”

“Ha, do they?” said the vicar; “well, I suppose I shall learn all in time. What may ‘pag-rag’ mean?”

“They call it so here, sir,” said the young man, smiling. “They say a man pags a sack on his back, and I suppose it means they carry off their clothes then.”

“I see,” said the vicar; “and you have some strange characters about at such times? By the way, I saw a nice respectable couple turn in at the Bull and Cucumber, as I came by. They’d got poacher stamped on their faces plainly.—Head bad?”

“Sudden stab, sir, that’s all,” said John Maine, holding his hands to his head and shuddering.

“Ah, you must go back and lie down as soon as I have done with you, or else I must find you a sofa for an hour. We’ll see how you are. Perhaps we’ll walk home together.”

“No, no, sir, I shall be all right directly. Don’t do that, sir. Mr Bultitude—”

“Mr Bultitude has too much respect for you, John Maine, to let you go about in a state of suffering; so just hold your tongue, sir, for you’re my patient.”

A few minutes after he laid his hand on the gate, with the effect of making Jacky Budd start up from his seat on the bottom of a large flower-pot, and begin vigorously hoeing at some vegetables in the now trim garden.

The vicar saw him and laughed to himself, as he led the way up to the door, glancing up the street as he did so, and seeing, with a feeling of uneasiness, that there were knots of men standing about in conversation, as if discussing some important subject.

The door stood wide open, as if inviting entrance, and flowers were now blooming in profusion on every side, for what with the rough work of Tom Podmore and Big Harry, supplemented by the efforts of Jacky Budd and the parson himself, the garden was what the sexton called a “pictur.”

“Come in here, Maine,” said the vicar, opening the door of his study; and the young man followed, peering round as he did so, for this was his first visit to the vicar’s dwelling, and the result of a month’s residence was shown in the change that had come over the place.

But at the end of the first fortnight, one of Mr Bultitude’s waggons had been run down to the station three times to fetch “parson’s traps,” and “parson’s traps” were visible on all sides, the Reverend Murray Selwood being, to use his own words, “rather cursed with wealth.”

The place was now the beau ideal of a well-to-do bachelor’s home. The low-roofed entrance-hall was bright with oak furniture, quaint china, trophies of old arms, and savage weapons, with flowers, for the most part sent by Mrs Glaire, placed wherever there was light and sunshine for them to break up into long sheaves on the clean stone floor. Through an open door could be seen the dining-room, whose oaken sideboard was half covered with massive plate, college cups, and trophies won by muscular arms and legs guided by a clear-thinking and solid brain; but the study itself took John Maine’s attention, with its cases full of books, great bronze clock, and vases on the mantelpiece, with statuettes on brackets.

There were traces of the owner’s polished taste in every direction, but at the same time samples of his love of out-door sports. For instance, in one corner there stood a polished canoe-paddle with a fascine of fishing-rods; in another corner a gun-case and a couple of cricket-bats; lying on a side-table, its handle carefully bound with string, was about the biggest croquet mallet that ever drove ball over a velvet lawn. A half-written sermon lay on the writing-table, and by it a cigar-box; while on the chimney-piece and in brackets were pipes, from the humble clay, through briars, to the tinted brown meerschaum with its amber tube. The greatest incongruity in the place, however, seeing that it was the snuggery of a man of peace, was a trophy of single-sticks, foils, masks and gloves, crossed by a couple of bows, in front of which were a sheaf of arrows and two pairs of boxing-gloves.

“Looking at the gloves, Maine?” said the vicar, smiling. “Ah, I used to be a bit of a don with those at one time. You and I will put them on together some day. Just touch that bell.”

John Maine obeyed, while the young vicar found his keys, and opened a cabinet which was in two compartments, the one displaying a regular array of medicines, the other spirits, wine, and glasses.

“Bring in some water, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar.

“And a sponge and a rag and the ragjack oil?” said Mrs Slee, eagerly.

“No, Mrs Slee. It’s medicine, not surgery to-day;” and the woman backed out, looking a little less angular and sad than a few weeks before.

“I’m a regular quack, Maine, you see,” said the vicar, smiling, as he poured into a great soda-water glass a certain quantity of tincture, added to it a couple of table-spoonfuls of brandy, and so much granulated magnesia, to which, when Mrs Slee returned, he poured about half a pint of pure cold well water. “There’s a dose for you, my man,” he said, as he passed it to John Maine, “that will set you right in an hour. Now, Mrs Slee, any one been?”

“Yes, Bulger’s girl’s been here with a bottle for some wine,” said Mrs Slee shortly, for “sir” and a respectful tone were still strangers to her tongue.

“Bring the bottle in. Any one else?”

“Maidens’s boy says you promised his mother some tea.”

“So I did,” said the vicar, opening a large canister, from which he took a packet which scented the room with its fragrance. “There it is. Now then, who else?”

“Old Mumby’s wife has come for some more wine.”

“Then she’ll go back without it, Mrs Slee. Do you see that,” he continued, giving her a strange look; “that’s the peculiar sign that used to be in vogue amongst the ancients. That’s the gnostic wink, Mrs Slee, and means too much. I won’t send a spoonful. That wicked old woman drank every drop of the last herself, Mrs Slee, I’ll make affidavit. She wouldn’t stir across the room to wait on her poor old husband, and yet she’ll come nearly a mile to fetch that wine. I’ll take it myself, and give it the poor old boy, and see him drink it before I come away. Tell her I’ll bring it down, Mrs Slee; but don’t say I called her a wicked old woman.”

“Oh, I’m not going to chatter. Do you think I should be such a ghipes?” said Mrs Slee, rudely.

“Not knowing what a ghipes is, I cannot say, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar; “but you are not perfect, Mrs Slee—not perfect. Soup. You have that last soup on your conscience!”

“Well, I’m sure I should ha’ been glad on a few not long back, and it was quite good enew to gie away to people.”

“And I’m sure it was not, Mrs Slee: the poor people are hungry, and want food. This strike’s a terrible thing.”

“Then they shouldn’t strike,” growled Mrs Slee.

“I quite agree with you, Mrs Slee, so I don’t give soup to the men who did strike; but the women and children did not strike, and if you knew what it was to be hungry—I beg your pardon, Mrs Slee,” he added hastily, as he saw his housekeeper flush up. “There, I did not think. But this soup. We had a capital French cook at my college, and he gave me lessons. I’m a capital judge of soup, and I’ll taste the fresh. Bring me in a basin, and send these people away.”

Mrs Slee muttered and went out, looking rather ungracious, and the vicar turned to his guest, who was fidgetting about and seemed rather uneasy.

“I’m rather proud of our soup here at the vicarage—broth, the people call it,” said the vicar.

“I’ve heerd tell of it, sir,” said John Maine, who wanted to go.

“But I have hard work to keep the water out. I always tell Mrs Slee that the people can add as much of that as they like. But, I say, Maine, there’s something wrong with you!”

“Oh, no, sir; nothing at all, sir; but it’s time I was going, sir, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Well, well, good-bye, Maine. I hope,” he added significantly, “your head will be better. Mind this, though, I’m not one of the confessional parsons, and insist upon no man’s confidence; but bear this in mind, I look upon myself as the trusted, confidential friend of every man in the parish. I shall be over your way soon.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Maine. “I know you do,” and, backing out, the next moment he was gone.

“Strange young man that—strange people altogether,” said the vicar. “Oh, here’s the soup.”

For just then Mrs Slee bustled in with a napkin-covered tray, bearing a basin and spoon, the former emitting clouds of steam.

The vicar took the basin, sat down, stirred it, smelt it, tasted it, and replaced the spoon, while Mrs Slee watched his face eagerly.

“Wants another pinch of salt, and another dash of pepper. Fetch them, Mrs Slee, and some bread.”

Mrs Slee, looking as ungracious as ever, but with an eagerness which she could not conceal, hurried out to return with the required articles, when more salt was added and a dash of pepper. Then a slice of bread was cut from the home-made loaf, and the vicar tasted—tasted again, and then, in the calmest and most unperturbed manner possible, went on partaking of the soup, every mouthful being watched with intense eagerness by the woman waiting for his judgment.

“Capital soup this, Mrs Slee; capital brew!”

Mrs Slee did not smile, as the vicar diligently hunted the last grains of rice in the bottom of the basin with his spoon, but she gave a sigh of satisfaction.

“This will go off like a shot. How much have you got of it? Almost equal to our soup at Boanerges.”

“There’s about sixty quarts of it, sir.”

“Sixty? Not half enough. You’ll have to start the copper again directly, Mrs Slee. Ah, by the way, Bailey will bring two hundred loaves this evening, and we’ll give them away with the soup in the morning.”

“Two hundred loaves!” exclaimed Mrs Slee. “Bless the man, where am I to put them?”

“Oh, we’ll stack them in the hall if we can’t put them anywhere else, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, laughing. “And let that soup cool. It’ll be like jelly in the morning. I’m going to walk over to Bultitude’s, and I’ll call at the butcher’s about the beef.”

“But that broth would bear as much watter to it, and that would make twice as much.”

“Now, Mrs Slee, I won’t have a good thing spoiled,” said the vicar. “I don’t believe you mind the trouble of making it.”

“That I’m sure I don’t,” said Mrs Slee, sharply; “only you’re giving away cartloads of bread and meat, and pailsful of soup to folks as wean’t say thank you for it, and laugh at you for your pains.”

“They won’t laugh at me while they’re eating that beautiful soup, Mrs Slee, which does you credit. If they like to laugh afterwards,—well, let them.”

“Oh, I don’t want no praise for the broth,” said Mrs Slee, ungraciously. “You telled me how to mak’ it. But I don’t like to see you robbing yourself for them as is sure to be ungrateful.”

“We won’t mind that, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, smiling; “and now I’m going off to Bultitude’s, and I’ll see if I can’t get there this time. By the way, Mrs Slee, I should like a little tureen of that soup for my dinner; it’s splendid. And look here, Mrs Slee, if any one comes while I’m out, who needs a little, you can lend a jug, and give some of the soup before it’s cold. I’ll leave that to you.”

Volume Two—Chapter Five.

The Vicar’s Soup.

“He’s a strange good man,” said Mrs Slee, grimly, as she watched the vicar down the path; “and he must hev a vast o’ money, giving away as he is raight and left. Well, I won’t hev him cheated if I can help it, for the more he gives the more he may. Who’s yon at the back?”

The last remark was jerked out as a soft tap was heard at the kitchen door, and on going to answer it, there stood Sim Slee.

“Well?”

“Well?”

“Didn’t I tell thee as thou needn’t come here?” said Mrs Slee. “I thowt you wouldn’t darken parson’s door again.”

“What’s that as smells?” said Sim, giving a sniff.

“Soup for them as you and your strike folk have left to pine to dead,” snapped Mrs Slee.

“Is that some on it in they pancheons?” said Sim.

“Yes, it is,” said his wife, sulkily.

“I heered tell on it,” said Sim. “He’ve been a scrattin about at all the butchers’, and buying up weighs of cag mag as they couldn’t sell. I saw a basket o’ stinking bones come up to the gate, and I heerd at the Bull as he’s gotten four beasts’ heads promised. Yah! it’s a shame as such as him should hev a place like this, and five hundred a year.”

“Thou fulsome!” exclaimed Mrs Slee, angrily. “I wean’t stand by and hear parson talked about like that.”

“All raight,” said Sim, sneering; “he’s won you ower then. But what hev you gotten to eat?”

“Nowt,” said Mrs Slee, shortly.

“Here, just take thee scithers, and coot the dwiny ends off my collar,” said Sim, holding up the ragged but scrupulously clean collar of the shirt he wore; and this duty was diligently performed by his wife.

“Some one telled me as the soup meat was covered wi’ maddick bees,” said Sim, as soon as the task was done.

“Then some one telled thee a lie,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.

“Power up a few of it in a basin,” said Sim, after examining the broad earthen pans in which the thick soup steamed. “Let’s see what sorter stuff the downtrodden serf is to be compelled to eat.”

“It isn’t good enough for such as thou,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.

Sim took up the spoon, and with an air of disgust raised some of the soup and let it drop back, exhaling as it did so a most tantalising odour for a hungry man.

“I just come by Riggall’s, the bone-setter’s,” said Sim; “and he says as he won’t hev parson meddling wi’ his trade, if doctor does. Why, he tied up Binney Mawtrop’s hand as he got in the wheel.”

“Yes, and I held a basin and a sponge for him,” said Mrs Slee, eyeing her husband. “He owt to hev let him bleed to dead, of course.”

“Say, owd lass,” said Sim, “is this stuff fit to yeat?”

“Fit to yeat, thou unconditioned fulsome! it ain’t fit for thee. Bread and watter’s what such shacks as thou ought to hev, and nowt besides.”

“Thy tongue’s gotten a strange and rough edge to it this morning, moother,” said Sim, grinning, and longing to convey the spoon to his mouth, but feeling that it would not be consistent.

“There, sit thee down,” said Mrs Slee. “I know what you mean. There, sit down, and don’t get theeing and thouing me about. A deal you care for me.”

This was in answer to a rough caress, as she bustled about, and got a basinful of the soup for her lord, with a great hunk of bread; and without more ado Sim took his seat.

“Oh, I’m not going to yeat this,” he said. “I’m just going to taste what sorter moock he gives the pore out of his bounty.”

“Howd thee tongue and eat,” said Mrs Slee, contemptuously.

Sim played with the spoon, and splashed the soup about, ending by tasting it and retasting, and then taking some bread and going heartily to work.

“Say, moother,” he exclaimed, “it won’t do; that’s the broth you’ve been makking for the parson hissen. It ain’t to give away.”

“That’s made o’ the meat as the parson went and scratted up from the butcher’s, and the baskets o’ bones and beasts’ heads, and all the rubbish he could get together,” said Mrs Slee sourly.

“I’ll say it’s good soup,” said Sim, finishing his basin. “Say, moother, give’s another soop.”

“He said I was to give some to anybody who wanted,” said Mrs Slee; and then, with a grim smile, she refilled his basin, while Sim drew out his handkerchief, spread it on his knees, and polished off the second basin in a very few minutes.

“You can’t get me to believe as that soup’s going to be gin away,” he said as he rose. “That’ll be wattered till it’s thin as thin. Theer, I’m off again. I’ve a deal to see to;” and without another word he hurried away.

“Yes, he’s gotten his fill,” said Mrs Slee, directing a look of contempt after her husband; but as she crossed the kitchen she saw something white under the chair Sim had occupied, and stooping down picked up a note in a very small envelope, whose address she spelled out: “Miss Banks, By hand.”

“What’s he gotten to do wi’ takkin letters to Daisy Banks?” she exclaimed, as a hot feeling of jealousy came upon her for the moment. Then, with a half-laugh she said, “No, no, it ain’t that: he’s too old and unheppen, and she’s ower young and pretty. He’s takkin it for some one. Whose writing will it be? He’s coming back.”

She stopped short, hearing a step, and darted out of the kitchen just as Sim came softly up, peered in and looked eagerly about the floor and under the table.

“Mebbe I’ve dropped it somewheers else,” he muttered, starting off again, while Mrs Slee had another good look at the letter, and ended by depositing it in her bosom.

“I’ll give it to parson,” she said at last, and then resumed her work.

Meanwhile, Murray Selwood was retracing his steps on the way to Bultitude’s farm, but before he reached the place he came upon John Maine once more, looking eagerly across the fields.

“Well, Maine, how’s the head?” said the vicar, making the young man start, for the grass had deadened his tread. “What can you see—game?”

“I’m afraid it is, sir,” said the young man, bluntly—“the sportsman and the hare.”

“H’m!” ejaculated the vicar, as he caught sight of two figures on the hill-side, far distant; but the day was so beautifully clear that he could make out Richard Glaire and a companion. “Mr Glaire and his cousin?” he said hastily.

“No, sir,” said the young man, quietly, “that’s what it ought to be. It’s Mr Richard Glaire and one of the town girls. I think it’s Daisy Banks. Do you know him well, sir?”

“Yes, pretty well,” said the vicar, eyeing the young man’s saddened face intently.

“Well, sir, it’s no business of mine,” said the young fellow; “but if I was a friend of Mr Richard Glaire, I should tell him to keep at home, and not do that; for the men are getting hot again him, and he may fall into trouble.”

“John Maine, if any violence is intended against Mr Glaire,” said the vicar, “I wish you to tell me at once.”

“I don’t know of any, sir,” said Maine, “only Tom Podmore’s dreadfully put out about Daisy Banks, and the strike people are growing more bitter every day. If I do hear of anything, sir, I’ll tell you.”

They came directly upon old Bultitude, looking bluff and ruddy in his velveteens and gaiters.

“Ah, parson, fine day! how are you? What’s the matter?”

“Well, Maine here isn’t well,” said the vicar.

“What’s wrong, lad? Why, thou said’st nowt when you came in a bit ago.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, sir, nothing,” said John Maine, hastily.

“Let him go and lie down for an hour,” said the vicar, looking at the young man’s ghastly face.

“Not got fever, hev you, my lad?” said the old gentleman kindly, as they walked up to the house. “Here, Jess, pull down the blinds in the far room, and let John Maine come and lie down a bit theer.”

At his summons, Jessie’s young, pleasant face appeared at the window. It had no more pretensions to beauty than a pair of soft, dark eyes, and a bright, rosy colour, and the eyes looked very wistfully at John Maine, who now made an effort.

“No, no, sir,” he said. “I won’t lie down. I’ll get to work again; there’s nothing like forgetting pain.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right, Maine,” said the vicar. “Well, Mr Bultitude, we don’t get over our strike.”

“Parson, it makes me wild,” said the old man. “I can’t bear it, and I shall be glad—strange and glad to see it over; for I hate to see a pack of men standing about the town doing o’ nowt. Can’t you do owt wi’ the works people?”

The vicar shook his head. “I’ve tried both ways—hard,” he said; “master and men, but no good comes of it.”

While this conversation was going on, Jessie had stepped anxiously forward, and laid her hand upon John Maine’s arm.

“Is anything serious the matter, John?” she said anxiously. “Are you very ill?”

He started when she touched him as if he had been stung, and withdrew his arm hastily; and then, without so much as a glance at the girl’s earnest, appealing eyes, he turned away and followed the vicar down the path, for he had shaken hands and parted from the farmer.

“I’ll see you across the home close, sir,” said John Maine.

“Thank you, do,” said the vicar; “but I think your bull pretty well knows me now. Hallo! here comes Mr Brough, the Squire’s keeper, with his black looks and black whiskers. He always looks at me as if he thought I had designs on the squire’s game. Hallo! Maine, bad friends? What does that mean?” he continued, as the man gave him a surly salute and then passed on, gun over shoulder, bestowing upon the young bailiff a sneering, half-savage look that was full of meaning.

“Tom Brough has never been very good friends with me, sir, since I thrashed him for annoying Miss Jessie there, up at the farm.”

“Seems as if his love has not yet returned,” said the vicar, as he strode away, thinking of the various little plots and by-plots going on in his neighbourhood; and then sighing deeply as he felt that there was trouble in store for himself, in spite of his stern discipline and busy efforts to keep his mind too much employed to think of the countenance that haunted his dreams.

It seemed to be the vicar’s fate to appear as playing the spy upon Richard Glaire, for, on Iiis return, taking a round-about way back, so as to make a call upon one or two people whom he had relieved of some part of the suffering induced by the strike, he was once more striking for the High Street, when he heard the words sharply uttered:

“Well, I’ll pay you this time; but let me find that you fail me again and don’t you expect—Confound—!”

“How do, Mr Glaire,” said the vicar, for he had come suddenly upon Richard, laying down the law pretty sharply to Sim Slee, and he was close to them before it was seen on either side.

“Really,” said the vicar to himself as he strode on, “I’ve not the slightest wish to see what that unfortunate young man does; but it seems to me that I am to be bound to bear witness to a great deal. Heigho! these are matters that must be left to time.”

He entered his own gate soon after, and having received Mrs Slee’s report, that lady handed him the note she had found.

“Mr Glaire’s hand,” he said, involuntarily and with his brows knit. “Where did you get this?”

“My master came to see me, and he must ha’ dropped it,” said Mrs Slee.

“Then take it to him,” said the vicar, quietly, as he resumed his calm aspect. “It is nothing to do with us.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Mrs Slee, sharply. “What call has young master Dick Glaire to be writing letters to she?”

“Take the letter to your husband, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, quietly; and then left alone, he threw himself into his chair, and covered his face with his hands, trying hard to resist temptation, for he knew well enough that if he had kept that letter and dishonourably shown it to Eve Pelly, so serious a breach would be created that his future success would be almost certain. But, no; he could not stir a step to make her unhappy. She loved this man, who was quite unworthy of her; and if she ever was awakened from her dream his must not be the hand that roused her.

He started as he heard the door close loudly, and saw Mrs Slee go down the path to seek out her husband, and return the letter.

There was time now to call her back, but he did not move, only sat and watched her bear away that which he knew might have been used as the lever to overthrow Richard Glaire.

Once only did he hesitate, but it was when his thoughts reverted to Daisy Banks and the possibility of ill befalling her, through her intimacy with Richard Glaire.

“But I cannot take action on a letter that falls accidentally into my hands,” he said. “If I speak to the girl’s father it must be on the subject of what I have seen; and that I will do.”

He gave the matter a little consideration, and then determined to act at the risk of being considered a meddler, and walked straight to Joe Banks’s pleasant little home, where he found Mrs Banks and Daisy alone, the girl being in tears.

He was turning; back, so as to avoid being present during any family trouble, when Mrs Banks arrested him.

“Don’t you go away, sir, please, for I should like you to have your word with this girl as well as me. It’s no use to speak to her father and—Hoity-toity, miss.”

Poor Daisy did not stop to hear the rest; for already growing thin with worry and mental care connected with her love affair, Mrs Banks was leading her rather a sad life in her husband’s absence, ostensibly to benefit Tom Podmore, but really hardening the girl’s heart against him, if she had felt any disposition to yield: she now started up to hide her tears, and ran out of the room.

“Well, that’s fine manners, miss!” exclaimed Mrs Banks, apostrophising the absent one. “I’m always telling her and Joe, my husband, sir, that no good can come of her listening to young Master Dick Glaire.”

“Then you don’t approve of it, Mrs Banks?” said the vicar, quietly.

“Approve of it, sir? No, nor anybody else, except her foolish father, who’s the best and kindest man in the world: only when he takes an obstinate craze there’s no turning him.”

The vicar found the matter already to his hand, and was spared the trouble of introducing the subject; but he would rather have found Joe Banks present.

“Does he approve of it?” he said, quietly.

“Approve of it, sir! yes. I tell him, and all his neighbours tell him, that it’s a bit of foolish vanity; but they can’t turn him a morsel.”

“Hallo, moother,” said Joe Banks, entering the room, “can’t you let that rest?”

“No, Joe, and I never shall,” exclaimed Mrs Banks.

“Don’t you tak’ any notice, sir,” said Joe. “She heven’t talked you round, hev she?”

“No, Mr Banks,” said the vicar, quietly; “it was not necessary. I have no right to interfere in these matters, but—”

“Well, speak out, sir; speak out,” said Joe, rather sternly. “Say out like a man what you mean.”

“If I did, Mr Banks, I should say that you were imprudent to let this matter proceed.”

“Why?”

“Because it is a well-known fact that Mr Glaire is engaged to his cousin.”

“There, Joe; there, Joe; what did I tell thee?” cried Mrs Banks, triumphantly; while Daisy, who could hear nearly all that was said, crouched with burning face in her room, shivering with nervous excitement, though longing to hear more.

“All raight, parson, I know,” said Joe; “I see. The missus has sent you.”

“Indeed, no, Banks,” said the vicar. “I speak as a friend, without a word from anybody.”

“Then, what do you mean by it?” cried Joe, exploding with passion. “What raight have you to come interferin’ in a man’s house, and about his wife and daughter? This is my own bit o’ freehold, Mr Selwood, and if you can’t pay respect to me and to mine, and see that if Master Richard Glaire, my old fellow-workman’s boy, chooses to marry my gal, he’s a raight to, why I’d thank you to stay away.”

“Don’t be angry with me, Mr Banks,” said the vicar, laying his hand upon the other’s arm; “I indeed wish you and yours well.”

“Then keep to wishing,” said Joe sharply. “I’m not an owd fool yet. Think I don’t know? Here’s the Missus, and Missus Glaire, and Tom Podmore, all been at you; and ‘All raight, leave it to me,’ says you. ‘I’ll put it all raight.’ And now you’ve had your try, and you can’t put it raight. I’ll marry my gal to anybody I like and she likes, in spite of all the parsons in Lincolnshire.”

“Don’t you tak’ any notice of what he says, sir, please,” cried Mrs Banks. “He’s put out, and when he is, and it’s about something that he knows he’s wrong over—”

“No, he isn’t,” roared Joe.

“He says anything, sir,” continued Mrs Banks.

“No, he don’t,” roared Joe. “He’s a saying raight, and what he says is, that he won’t be interfered wi’ by anyone. He’s got trouble enew ower the strike, and he won’t hev trouble ower this; so perhaps Mr Selwood ’ll stop away from my place till he’s asked to come again.”

“Joe, you ought to be ashamed of yoursen,” cried Mrs Banks. “He’ll come and beg your pardon for this, sir, or I’ll know the reason why.”

“No, he wean’t,” roared Joe. “So now go; and if you hadn’t been such a straightforward chap ower the row again Master Richard, I’d hev said twice as much to you.”

“Yes, I’ll go,” said the vicar quietly. “Good day, Mrs Banks. Good day, Banks; you’ll find I’m less disposed to meddle than you think, and give me credit for this some day. Come, you’ll shake hands.”

“Dal me if I will,” cried Joe.

“Nonsense, man; shake hands.”

“I wean’t,” roared Joe, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and turning his back.

“Well, Mrs Banks, you will,” said the vicar; and then, as he went away, he said:

“Mrs Banks, and you, Mr Banks, please recollect this: I shall forget all these words before I get home; so don’t either of you think that we are bad friends, because we are not; and you, Mr Banks, you are of too sterling stuff not to feel sorry for what you have said.”

“There, it wean’t do,” roared Joe; “I wean’t be talked ower;” but the vicar hardly heard his words, for he was striding thoughtfully away.

Volume Two—Chapter Six.

By the Chalk Pit.

Though Sim Slee had omitted on two occasions to convey letters to Daisy Banks making appointments for meetings in different parts of the country walks round Dumford, Daisy had had a pretty good supply of messages; and feeling as it were compelled to obey, she had gone on more than one occasion with sinking heart, to return with aching eyes, whose lids looked swollen and red with weeping.

For the girl was simply wretched, and time after time she looked back to the days when her heart was whole, and as she threw herself wearily on her bed she sobbed herself again and again to sleep, wishing that her very life were ended; the deceit she was obliged to practise, the anger of her mother, and the open sneers and innuendoes of neighbours wounding her so that the smart was almost more than she could bear.

Whether Dick chose east, west, north, or south for the appointment, poor Daisy could never get out of the town without encountering some one to give her a peculiar look, more than once driving the poor girl to make pretence of calling at some place that she did not want to visit, and as often turning her back home, making Richard Glaire, who had been kept waiting and “fooled,” as he called it, write her the cruellest and most angry letters, some even of a threatening nature.

It happened one evening that poor Daisy, who had broken faith the night before, was going slowly up the High Street, with a basket on her arm, as if bound on some marketing expedition, when it seemed as if it was impossible that she could get to her trysting place, where she knew that Dick must have been waiting for an hour.

First the landlord of the Bull was standing at his door smoking, and he gave a sneering nod, which seemed to say, “I know where you are going, my lass.”

A little further on sat Miss Purley, at her window, ready to put up her great square, chased gold eye-glass, and stare at the blushing girl with all the indignant force of thirty-nine tinged yellow, against nineteen of the freshest pink.

Again a little further, and she came suddenly upon Eve Pelly, who came from the big house, started, stopped, caught her hands, ejaculating “Oh, Daisy!” and then breaking down, turned suddenly away and re-entered the house.

To her horror, poor Daisy found that this meeting had been witnessed by Miss Primgeon, the lawyer’s sister, who was seated at her window, staring as hard as she could.

Not twenty yards farther on there stood Tom Podmore, leaning against a corner of a lane, also watching her; but as she approached he turned away without a word.

It was almost unbearable, and now a feeling of anger began to rise in Daisy’s bosom, making her pant, and flush up, as she determined to go on at all hazards.

Jane Budger, who kept the little beerhouse, and knew all the gossip of the place, which she retailed with gills of ale to her customers, saw her, stared, or rather squinted at her, and moved her hands as she exclaimed:

“Yes, my dear, I know where you are agate for to-night.”

Then there seemed a peculiar meaning in the innocent remark of one neighbour who met her in the street, and observed that the stones were “strange and slape.” So it was with another a little higher up, who remarked that the road was “very clatty.”

Next she met Big Harry in the muddiest part of the main street, and he exclaimed to her:

“Saay, lass, it’s solid soft.”

A little farther on she passed the druggist’s, where the great bottle of the trophies of his dental work seemed to grin at her in a ghastly way, for it was three parts full of extracted teeth.

Again a little further, and as she was passing Riggall’s, the bone-setter’s, his ghastly sign over his front door, of a skull and cross-bones, made her shudder; for it seemed to tell her of the goal to which she was steering, and so affected her, that outside the town in the winding road, she sat down shivering upon the mile-stone, crying as though her heart would break.

“What shall I do! What shall I do!” she sobbed, when she started up with a faint shriek, for a light hand was laid upon her shoulder.

“Miss Eve!” she cried, on seeing the pale tearless girl before her.

“Yes, Daisy, it is I,” said Eve. “I want to speak to you. Let us walk on together.”

“No, no, Miss Eve. No, no, dear; not that way.”

“Is Dick waiting for you up there?” said Eve, huskily.

“Don’t ask me, Miss; don’t ask me, please,” cried Daisy, imploringly, as they walked down a side lane.

“I thought he was,” said Eve, speaking in a very low deep voice, as if her emotion was stifling her. “I followed you to speak to you.”

“You’ve been following and watching me,” cried Daisy, with a burst of passion. “You all do; everybody watches me. What have I done that I should be so cruelly used? I wonder some one don’t want to put me in prison.”

“Daisy!” cried Eve, hoarsely, as she caught her by the wrist, “what have I done to you that you should have been so cruel and treacherous?”

“I haven’t been,” cried Daisy, with a burst of pettish sobs.

“Have I not always been kind and affectionate to you?”

“Yes, yes; I know that,” cried Daisy.

“And you reward me by trying to rob me of my promised husband.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t,” sobbed Daisy. “I didn’t want to; but he was always following me, and hunting me, and worrying me.”

“Daisy, Daisy!” cried Eve, with a passionate cry, as she threw herself on her knees to the homely girl, “give him back to me; oh, give him back.”

“Miss Eve! Miss Eve!” cried the girl, startled at the vehemence and suddenness of this outburst, “oh, do please get up. What can I do?”

“Oh, Daisy, you’ll break my heart. You’ll kill poor aunt. What have we done, that you should come like a blight upon us?”

Eve rose slowly and stood facing the girl, over whom a change seemed to be coming as she said sulkily:

“It wasn’t my doing.”

“But you must have led him on,” moaned poor Eve. “You, who are so bright and pretty, while I—while I—”

Daisy gave her now a jealous, vindictive look, as if she felt danger; and that this gentle girl was about to rob her of the man she loved, and she exclaimed:

“I must go. I won’t stop to be scolded. You want to win him back; but he belongs to me.”

“Daisy, Daisy!” cried Eve, catching at her shawl; but it was too late—the girl had turned and run back into the road, hastening on to the place where she was to have found Richard Glaire, up by the chalk pit; and as she hastened on, she would not look back. Still poor Eve followed her sadly as far as the road, and then turned back towards the town, saying sadly:—

“I could not move her. It is too late, too late.”

Long before Eve Pelly had reached the town, with its knots of men out of work, Daisy had climbed the hill to the chalk pit, where Richard was waiting, smoking angrily.

“At last!” he cried. “I was just going back.”

He gave a glance round, and was about to throw his arms round the flushed and panting girl, when he started back, and stood staring, as Mrs Glaire came slowly forward from amongst the trees, and taking Daisy’s wrist in her hand, she pointed down the road.

“There, you can go back,” she said, quietly. “I wish to speak to Daisy Banks.”

“No, no, Richard—Dick, dear, don’t leave me with her; she’ll kill me!” screamed Daisy, frightened by the pale, resolute-looking little woman, who held her so tightly.

“Silence, child!” cried Mrs Glaire.

“Oh, come, let’s have an end of this,” cried Richard.

“I intend to try for an end,” said Mrs Glaire, sharply, “for with you I can make no compact that will not be broken.”

“Oh, if it’s coming to that,” said Richard, sharply, “I shall bring matters to an end.”

“Go, sir! Go home,” said Mrs Glaire, sternly.

“Come, you needn’t bully that poor girl,” said Dick, with a half-laugh; then seeing the hand still pointing down the road, he grew uneasy, fidgeted, and ended by saying—“There, just as you like.”

“Dick, don’t leave me,” gasped Daisy.

“Don’t you be a little silly,” laughed Richard. “She won’t hurt you. I say, mother, you’d better make matters up with Daisy and bring her home, for I think I shall marry her after all.”

“Don’t, don’t leave me, Dick,” whispered Daisy, straining to reach him; but her wrist was tightly clasped, and she sank shivering on the bank by the deep chalk pit, whose side was separated from the lane by a low post and rail fence, beyond which the descent was a sheer precipice of seventy or eighty feet, the old weakened side being dotted with flowers; a place which, as she stood holding Daisy’s wrist still tightly and watching her son till he disappeared down the road, Mrs Glaire remembered to have been a favoured spot in her girlhood for gathering nosegays; and where, more than once, she had met her dead husband in the happy days of her own courtship.

As these thoughts came back from the past, a feeling of pity for the poor girl beside her stole into Mrs Glaire’s heart, and she trembled in her purpose; but after a few moments’ indecision, she told herself that it was for the happiness of all, and that Daisy Banks must suffer in place of Eve.

The stars were beginning to peer out faintly and the glow in the west was paling; but still she stood holding the wrist tightly; while, after making a few energetic efforts to free herself, Daisy submitted like a trapped bird, and crouched there palpitating, and not daring once to raise her eyes to those of the angry mother of the man she believed she loved; but who had at all events obtained so strong a hold upon her that she was forced to submit her will to his, and obey his every command.

Volume Two—Chapter Seven.

At Home.

“Two can play at that game,” said Richard to himself, as he walked sharply down the hill and back into the town, where, not heeding Eve, who was in the dining-room, he hastily wrote a short letter, and then putting on his hat, went out again, smoking a cigar, apparently to have a stroll, and sauntered down towards the Bull and Cucumber, where he gave a long, low whistle, uttered twice, and then walked on for some distance.

His signal had the required effect, for Sim Slee came after him with a soft pace like a cat, and together the two men went on in the darkness, Richard talking earnestly to his companion, and passing money to him, whose chink was very audible.

“Now you quite understand?” said Richard, earnestly.

“Understand? He, he, he!” chuckled Sim. “I’ve got it quite by heart. I say, won’t Joe Banks be popped?”

“Hold your tongue, and keep names quiet. Now you quite understand. I shall not show my face in the matter at all.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” said Sim. “All right, Mr Glaire, sir. You couldn’t have a troostier man than me.”

“I don’t know,” said Richard; “perhaps I oughtn’t to have given you the money till after.”

“Oh, you may troost me, Mr Richard, I’m square, sir, and honourable. It’ll all be done lovely.”

“Then I shall not see you again,” said Richard; and they parted.

“Ho, ho, ho!” chuckled Sim, slapping his legs. “Here’s a game. Some on ’em ’ll be chattering all over the place ’bout this, and, ho, my!”

He had another long enjoyable laugh, to start up half frightened, for a dark figure approached him so suddenly, that it was close upon him before he was aware of the fact.

“What are you laughing at?” said the newcomer, sharply. “What devil’s game hev yow and that Dick Glaire been hatching?”

“Hatching? Devil’s game, Tom Podmore? why, can’t a man laugh in the lane if he likes? But there, I’m off up to the mill, for it’ll reean to-night, mun.”

Tom Podmore strode off after Richard Glaire, muttering angrily, and on getting close to the town, it was to see the young man walking right in the middle of the road, to avoid the men standing about on the pebble-paved sidewalks.

It was well he did so, for there were plenty of hands ready to be raised against him, and had one struck at him, it would have been the signal for a rain of blows: for scores of men in the place were now vowing vengeance against the man whom they accused of starving their wives and bairns. In fact, it had so far been Richard Glaire’s insolent temerity that had saved him from assault. He had gone boldly about, urged thereto by his eagerness to meet little Daisy Banks, but for which engagements he would probably have stayed indoors, and run greater risks on the few occasions when he showed himself.

As it was, he hastened his steps this night, on seeing the dark groups about, and when Tom Podmore closed up, he almost ran the last few steps, dashed open the door, and, closing it, stood panting in the hall.

It was about half-past ten now, and he listened, with his hand upon the bolt, to the muttering voices without for a few minutes, till one of the maids came in to gaze at him curiously.

“Here, fasten up this door,” he said harshly.

“Fasten the door, sir?” said the girl.

“Yes, fasten the door, stupid,” he cried, angrily.

“But missus hasn’t come in yet,” said the girl.

“Not come in?” said Richard, starting as he recalled where he had left her; and then, with a hasty pish! “I daresay she’s at Purley’s. I’ll fasten the door. Don’t sit up.”

The girl was leaving the hall, when he called after her:

“Where’s Miss Eve?”

“Gone to bed, sir, with a sick headache.”

“She’s always got a sick headache,” growled Richard.

“I wish you had ’em your sen,” muttered the girl.

“There, bring some hot water and a tumbler into the dining-room,” said Richard, as the girl was turning to go.

He went into the dining-room, got out the spirit-stand, and, on the hot water being brought, mixed himself a stiff glass of brandy and water, and drank it rapidly, listening occasionally to the footsteps and loud talking without.

A second glass followed shortly after, and then, tired out with the day’s work, the young man threw himself on the sofa. The sounds outside by degrees grew indistinct and distant, and then, with a pale, ghost-like Eve following him always, he was journeying through foreign lands with Daisy, who looked lovingly up in his face. Then, Tom Podmore seemed to be pursuing him and threatening his life. Next it was the vicar; and then, at last, after struggling hard to get away, Joe Banks stood over him with a flashing light, and as he waited to hear him say, “Where is my child?”—waited with a feeling of suspense that seemed prolonged for years, the voice said coldly and sternly:

“Why are you not in bed?”

He started into wakefulness to see that it was his mother standing over him with a chamber candlestick, looking very cold and white.

“How could I go to bed when you were not back?” he said sulkily.

“You can go to bed now,” she said, quietly.

“Where have you been?”

She made no answer.

“Were there many of those scoundrels about?” he asked.

“The men would not injure me,” she said, in the same low voice.

“But how did you get in?”

“Eve came down and admitted me,” was the reply.

“What’s o’clock?”

Mrs Glaire made no answer.

“Oh, if you like to be sulky you can,” said Richard, coolly; and, lighting a chamber candle, he strode off to bed.

As he turned to wind up his watch in a sleepy manner, he found that it had run down, so with an impatient gesture he laid it aside, finished undressing, and tumbled into bed.

“Some of them will open their eyes to-morrow,” he muttered, with a half-laugh. “Well, it was time to act. I’m not going to be under petticoat government all my life.”

At the same time Mrs Glaire was seated pale and shivering in the dining-room, while all else in the house were sleeping soundly, and the street was now painfully still, for the murmuring workers of the foundry had long since sought their homes, more than one sending up a curse on Richard Glaire, instead of a prayer for his well-being and peace.

Volume Two—Chapter Eight.

Old Friends Again.

“If I could only tell him everything,” muttered John Maine, as he strode away from the vicar’s side, and made for the farm.

He was not half-way back, when he met Tom Brough, the keeper, who favoured him with a sneering, contemptuous kind of smile that made the young man’s blood boil. He knew him to be a rival, though he felt sure that Jessie did not favour his suit in the slightest degree. Still her uncle seemed to look upon Brough as a likely man to make his niece a good partner; for Tom Brough expected to come in for a fair amount of property, an old relative having him down in his will for succession to a comfortable farm—a nice thing, argued old Bultitude, for a young couple beginning life.

It might have been only fancy, but on reaching the crew-yard, old Bultitude seemed to John Maine to speak roughly to him. However, he took no notice, but went about his duties, worked very hard for a time, and went in at last to the evening meal, to find Jessie looking careworn and anxious.

After tea he sent a boy up with a message to the cricket-field, saying that he was too unwell to come; and after this he went to his own room to sit and think out his future, breaking off the thread of his musings and seeking Jessie, whom he found alone, and looking strange and distant.

“Jessie,” he began, and she turned her face towards him, but without speaking, and then there was a minute’s pause.

“Jessie,” he began again, and the intention had been to speak of his own affairs, but his feelings were too much for him, and he turned off the primary question to pass to one that had but a secondary place in his mind.

Jessie did not reply, but looked up at him timidly, in a way that checked rather than accelerated his flow of words.

“I wanted to speak to you about Daisy Banks,” he said at last.

“Yes; what about her?” said Jessie, wonderingly.

“I ought not to speak perhaps; but you have no mother, and Mr Bultitude does not seem to notice these things.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jessie, wonderingly.

John Maine would gladly have backed out of his position, but it was too late, and he was obliged to flounder on.

“I meant about Daisy Banks and Mr Richard Glaire.”

“Well?” said Jessie, looking full at him. “What about them?”

“I meant that I don’t think you ought to be so intimate with her now.”

“And why not?”

“The Dumford people couple her name very unpleasantly with Mr Richard’s, and for your sake I thought I’d speak.”

“For shame!” cried the girl, rising, and looking angrily at him. “That young Podmore has been talking to you.”

“No, indeed, indeed, poor Tom never mentions her name.”

“I won’t believe, John Maine, that you could be so petty and ungenerous yourself. Mr Glaire loves Daisy, and she confided all to me. Such words as yours are quite an insult to her, and—and I cannot—will not stay to hear them.”

The girl’s face was burning, and she ran out of the place to hide her tears, while John Maine, whose intention had been to say something very different, sighed bitterly, and went back to his room. There, however, everything looked blacker than ever, and he could see nothing in the gloom—devise no plan. He knew that the best proceeding would be to set the scoundrels he had seen that morning at defiance—that everybody whose opinion was worth a rush would applaud his frank declaration that he had turned from his evil courses to those which were reputable; but then the people he knew—Mr Bultitude—Jessie—the vicar—his friends in Dumford—what would they say? There seemed to be but one chance for him—to pack up a few things in a bundle and go and seek his fortune again elsewhere—perhaps to live in peace for a few years before he should be again hunted down by some of the wolves amongst whom his early lot had been cast.

“John—John!”

He started. It was Jessie calling, and hastily going downstairs, it was to see her with the flush gone out of her cheeks, and looking pale and anxious, as she held out a strip of paper.

“Two rough-looking men gave this to the boy for you,” she said, looking at him in a troubled way.

He took the paper hastily, and turned away with a dark red glow spreading over his temples. He divined who had sent the note, and shivered as he thought of how the boy would chatter to everybody about the farm. Perhaps Jessie had questioned him already, and set him down as being the friend and companion of the senders:

Turning away, he walked out into the yard to find that the paper had originally been used for holding an ounce of tobacco, and upon it was scrawled in pencil:

“We ave bin spekkin yu hat the krikt fele Ude betr cum.”

“2 OLE FRENDS.”

“You had better come!” What should he do? Set them at defiance or go away at once?

Torn by doubts he could do neither, but stood hesitating, till, in a fit of desperation, he strode off in the direction of the cricket-field.

He had saved a little money, and he might perhaps bribe them to take it and go, leaving him in peace, though he felt the while that such a proceeding would only be an invitation to them to come back, and demand more; but even if they did, a fortnight’s respite was worth all he possessed; and, besides, it would give him time to turn round and devise some plan for freeing himself of his incubus.

To reach the cricket-field he had to pass the back-door of the vicarage; taking, as he did, the cut through the fields; and as he neared it, separated from it by a high hedge, his blood turned cold as he heard Mrs Slee’s shrill voice exclaim:

“You can’t miss it: the second tunning to the right, and then it’s the second field.”

“And you wean’t buy the bud then, mum—that theer goldfinch as I told you off?”

“Bird, no,” cried Mrs Slee; “what do I want with such clat. Let the poor thing go. You ought to be ashamed of yoursens.”

“We just about are,” said one of the men: and then, as John Maine remained breathless behind the hedge, he heard the grating of feet upon the gravel, and one said to the other:

“Say, Jem, lad, did you see?” and he made a smacking noise with his lips.

“I see,” replied Jem, “everythink.” Then, “If that theer Johnny Maine don’t show up, we’ll precious soon have the owd badger out of his earth.”

John Maine shrank back with a cloud of thoughts hurrying through his brain, foremost among which was that these men had been spying up at the vicarage. Through any window there could be seen the valuable plate on the sideboard and shelves, and the plan of offering a bird for sale was but an excuse for getting up to a house—a plan which he knew of old.

For a few moments he felt disposed to turn back; then he was for facing them boldly: but all doubts were set at rest by footsteps coming in his direction; so, stepping out boldly, he was soon after face to face with his two old companions, who seemed to be strolling about with their hands in their pockets, enjoying an evening pipe.

“Here he is!” exclaimed Ike, grinning; “I knew he’d come. But howd your noise, Jem; don’t make a row. Johnny don’t care about being seen too much along of us. It’s all raight. He knows a thing or two. There’ll be a bit of a game on soon, lad, and we shall want you. We don’t know one another, we don’t. Now, which is the gainest way to the cricket-field?”

John Maine pointed in the direction, and Jem came close up with a leer, saying:

“Say, lad, recklect that plate job, eh? Melted down at Birmingham or Sheffle, an’ no questions asked.”

John Maine shuddered as he recalled the time when he was innocently made the bearer of a heavy package to a bullion melter, and told afterwards whence the silver had been obtained.

Before he had recovered himself, the two scoundrels had sauntered away, leaving him shivering, as he thought over their words, and understood them as a threat of denunciation, unless he kept his own counsel.

Then, in imagination, he saw a party drive over from one of the big towns in a light spring-cart, drawn by a weedy screw of a horse; an entry made at the vicarage, and everything of value swept away, while he was helpless to arrest the robbery, except at the cost of his worldly position.

He stood thinking for a time, and then strode on across the fields to the cricket ground, where a little half-hearted play was going on, the men of Dumford being too much influenced by the strike to care much for any thing save their tobacco. He caught sight of the two men once or twice; but they took not the slightest heed of his presence, and instead of their watching him he watched them, following them at last into the town, and seeing them go along the main street past the Glaires’ house, and away up the hill, Richard coming down and passing them.

“Can they be going right away?” thought John Maine hopefully, till he recollected a low, poacher-haunted public-house about a mile beyond the chalk pit, and rightly set that down as their destination.

He turned back with a sigh, to see Tom Podmore leaning thoughtfully against one of the houses, and going up, the two young men engaged in conversation for a few minutes, each rigorously abstaining from all mention of the other’s love affairs, and soon after they parted, for John Maine to seek his sleepless pillow.

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.

Lost.

There was no newspaper in Dumford, only those which came from Ramford and Lindum, but news flew quite fast enough without, and by breakfast-time on the morning of the day following the events spoken of in the past chapter, it was known that Daisy Banks had not been home all night.

Joe Banks himself spread the news by going and making inquiries in all directions directly he was up.

For, on waking about half-past five, according to his regular custom, and jumping out of bed to dress and go into his garden, as he had no work, he found to his astonishment that his wife had not been to bed; and she now came to him, crying bitterly, to say that she had been sitting up all night waiting for Daisy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he roared.

“I wanted to screen her, Joe,” moaned Mrs Banks. “I thought you’d be so popped with the poor girl; and though I didn’t like her goings on, I didn’t want her to be scolded.”

“What time did she go out?” said Joe, trying to recall the past night.

“About eight, and I expected her back every minute after ten.”

“Here, give me my hat,” cried Joe; and he was off to the main street, where, in answer to inquiries, he found that Daisy had been seen in the High Street soon after eight.

“What’s wrong?” said Tom Podmore, coming out of his house.

“Daisy! hev you seen my Daisy?” said Joe, furiously.

“Yes, I see her go up the street last night at about eight,” said Tom, “as if going up the hill by the chalk pit.”

“Did you folly her?”

“No,” said Tom, sadly; “I never folly her now. But what’s it mean—isn’t she at home?”

“No,” said Joe, sharply. “She’s not been at home all night. Wheer can she be?”

“Better ask Master Dick Glaire,” said Tom, uttering a groan. “He can tell ye.”

“Howd thee tongue, thee silly fool,” cried Joe, angrily. “How should he know owt about where she is? Here, come along. I’ll soon show thee thou’rt wrong.”

He led the way to the Big House, where one of the maids was just opening the shutters; and, on being beckoned to, she came to the door.

“Where’s Master Richard?” said Joe.

“Fast asleep in bed,” said the girl.

“Art sure?” said Joe.

“Yes, certain,” said the girl.

“Was he out last night?”

“Yes,” said the girl; “but he came home early, and then went out for a bit; but he was in very soon, and sat up to let missus in, while I went to bed.”

“What time will he be up?” said Joe.

“Not before nine,” said the girl. “Shall I tell him you want him?”

“No,” said Joe. “I’ll come on again soon.”

Tom seemed surprised and troubled, for he had fully expected to find that Richard Glaire was from home.

“Thou’rt wrong, lad,” said Joe, drawing his breath through his teeth. “Some ill has fallen to the poor lass.”

“What’s up, Joe Banks?” said Harry, the big hammerman, straddling slowly up.

“Did’st see owt o’ my Daisy last night?” said Joe.

Harry pulled off his cap, and gave his head a rub before answering.

“Yes, I see her go up ta hill, ’bout eight it weer.”

“Did you see her come back?” asked Tom, eagerly.

“No, lad, no. I see Master Richard Glaire come along though,” said the big fellow, under the impression that that might act as a clue.

“Yes,” said Tom, bitterly. “I saw him, and again at about ten, talking to Sim Slee, and then the lads followed him up street, and he ran into the house.”

“Sim Slee!” said Joe, thinking. “We’ll ask him; but let’s go to the police.”

At the station no news could be heard, and as time went on, plenty of neighbours could be found to say that they had seen Daisy Banks go up the hill; and amongst these was the chattering old woman at the public-house. But no one had seen her return.

“Come along o’ me, lad,” said Joe Banks; and they strode up the hill, a heavy sense of dread gathering over each of the men, as they thought of the chalk pit, and the possibility of Daisy having fallen in, to lie there dead or dying, on the rough, hard blocks at the bottom.

The morning was bright and beautiful, and the sun made the dew-sprinkled strands and twigs glitter like gems; but to those who sought Daisy Banks, all seemed gloomy, and in spite of all his bitter feelings, Tom Podmore’s heart was terribly stirred within him, so that he uttered a wild cry when just at the top, and ran ahead to pick up something soaked and wet with the night dew.

“It’s her basket,” he cried.

Joe staggered, and seemed to turn sick; but recovering himself, he ran up to the younger man.

“Yes, it’s her basket,” he said, huskily. “Tom, lad, look over the rail—I—I can’t.”

Joe Banks sank down on his knees, and covered his face with his rough hands, while Tom shuddered, and then calling up his fortitude, looked over the rail down the steep-sided pit, and uttered a cry as he drew back, ran down the lane to the end of the slope, leaped the gate across the track where the carts descended, and running over the scattered lumps of chalk, made his way down into the deepest part of the pit, where to him it had seemed that Daisy was lying at the bottom of the wall of grey rock.

But, no, it was only her dew-soaked shawl; and though he looked in all directions, he found nothing else but a glove.

“She must have been here,” he said to himself, and in an agitated way he clambered about over the blocks of chalk, and the débris fallen from above; but nothing was visible, and he stood at last looking round.

There was the face of the chalk before him, and he was shut in by it right and left, the walls gradually falling lower as he turned back and passed the extinct lime-kiln, till they sloped down to the level of the track—the pit having been gradually dug in the side of the hill, every load taken out cutting farther into the side, and making the principal wall of chalk more precipitous and high.

Still, not satisfied, Tom Podmore ran back and hunted in all directions; but as far as he could see nothing was visible, and he turned once more to find the father coming to join him, trembling, and looking ashy pale.

“Hev you found her, Tom? hev you found her?” he gasped, and on Tom shaking his head, he caught him by the arm. “Yes,” he exclaimed, in a piteous voice, “that’s her shawl. Where is she gone?”

“I heven’t found her,” said the young man, hoarsely. “She’s not there.”

“Not there? Not fallen in? Thank God, thank God! But are ye sure, lad? are ye sure?”

“I’ve hunted the place all over,” said Tom, sadly; and then Joe Banks clutched his arm tightly, and they went straight back to the town, where Joe stopped at the Big House and was admitted, Tom Podmore following.

“Wheer’s the master?” said Joe, hastily.

“Just come down and gone out,” said the girl. “Shall I tell missus?”

“Yes,” said Joe. “No;” and then to himself, “I can’t meet her now.”

He hurried out and down the street, head after head being thrust out, while the people outside their doors gave him looks of condolence, and shook their heads by way of sympathy.

“Tom, lad,” said Joe, “I can’t kinder understand this; it’s amairzin. But look here, lad; go and ask the boys to come and help you, and mebbe you’ll get a hundred of ’em ready to search for my bairn. Get the police, too. I’m off to find the young master.”

Tom started off on his recruiting expedition, while Daisy’s father hurried down the street to try and find Richard Glaire, though not with the most remote idea of coupling him with the girl’s disappearance.

He had nearly reached the vicarage, and was passing one of the side lanes, when he heard voices in altercation, and on glancing round it was to see the man he sought holding Sim Slee by the throat, and shaking him violently.

“You treacherous hound!” he was saying, “and after the way I’ve trusted you.”

“Joe Banks, here, Joe Banks, help!” yelled Sim; but before Daisy’s father could reach the couple, Richard Glaire threw the democrat off, so that he staggered against the wall.

“You dog!” cried Richard, grinding his teeth.

“All right,” whimpered Sim. “All right, Mr Richard Glaire, Esquire. I’ve stood up for you enew lately; now tak’ care of yoursen.”

“I’ll break your head, you scoundrel, if you don’t go,” roared Richard.

Sim rubbed the dust from his person and shook himself straight, looking side-wise the while at his assailant before sidling off, shaking his fist; and then, when about fifty yards away, turning round and shouting:

“I’ll be even with you for this, Dick Glaire.”

Richard made a rush at him, when Sim took to his heels and ran, while the young man turned back to where Joe Banks stood holding poor Daisy’s basket and shawl.

“Master Dick,” said the old man sternly, “I want to ask thee a question, and I want yow, as your father’s son, to give me a straightforward answer.”

“But what does this all mean, Joe? what’s this about Daisy?”

“Answer my question,” said the old man, sternly; and then he paused for a moment, as he fixed his clear eyes on the young man’s shifty face, before saying hoarsely: