His face was as pale as ashes, his eyes were fixed, and his gaze was far away. Greta grew afraid of the horror she had awakened.

"Don't think too seriously about it," she said. "Besides, I may have been mistaken. In fact, Hugh said—"

"Well, what did he say?"

"He made me ashamed. He said I had imagined I saw you and screamed, and so frightened your mother."

"There are men in the world who would see the Lord of Hosts come from the heavens in glory and say it was only a water-spout."

"But, as you said yourself, it was in the night, and very dark. I had nothing but the feeble oil-lamp to see by. Don't look like that, Paul."

The girl lifted a nervous hand and covered his eyes, and laughed a little, hollow laugh.

Paul shook himself free of his stupor.

"Good-night, Greta," he said, tenderly, and walked to the door. Then the vacant look returned.

"The answer is somewhere—somewhere," he said, faintly. He shook himself again, and shouted, in his lusty tones:

"Good-night, all—good-night, good-night!"

The next instant he was gone.

Out in the road, he began to run; but it was not from exertion alone that his breath came and went in gusts. Before he reached the village his nameless sentiment of dread of the unknown had given way to anxiety for his mother. What was this strange illness that had come upon her in his absence? Her angel-face had been his beacon in darkness. She had lifted his soul from the dust. Tortured by the world and the world's law, yet Heaven's peace had settled on her. Let the world say what it would, into her heart the world had not entered.

He hurried on. What a crazy fool he had been to let Natt go off with the trap! Why had not that coxcomb told him what had occurred? He would break every bone in the blockhead's skin.

How long the road was, to be sure! A hundred fears suggested themselves on the way. Would his mother be worse? Would she be still conscious? Why, in God's name, had he ever gone away?

He came by the Flying Horse, and there, tied to the blue post, stood the horse and trap. Natt was inside. There he was, the villain, in front of the fire, laughing boisterously, a glass of hot liquor in his hand.

Paul jumped into the trap and drove away.

It was hardly in human nature that Natt should resist the temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt never tried to resist it.

"Is it all die-spensy?" he asked, with a wink, when, with masterly circumlocution, he had broached his topic.

"It's a fate, I tell tha'," said Tom o' Dint, taking a churchwarden from between his lips; and another thin voice, from a back bench—it was little Jacob Berry's—corroborated that view of the mystery.

A fine scorn sat on the features of Natt as he exploded beneath their feet this mine of supernaturalism.

"Shaf on your bogies and bodderment, say I," he cried; "there are folks as won't believe their own senses. If you'll no' but show me how yon horse of mine can be in two places at once, I'll maybe believe as Master Paul Ritson can be here and in London at the same time. Nowt short o' that'll do for me, I can tell you."

And at this conclusive reasoning Natt laughed, and crowed, and stirred his steaming liquor. It was at that moment that Paul whipped up into the trap and drove away.

"Show me as my horse as I've tied to the post out there is in his stable all the time, and I's not be for saying as maybe I won't give in."

Gubblum Oglethorpe came straggling into the room at that instant, and caught the words of Natt's clinching argument.

"What see a post?" he asked.

"Why, the post afore the house, for sure!"

"Well, I wudna be for saying but I's getten a bit short-sighted, but if theer's a horse tied to a post afore this house, I's not be for saying as I won't be domd!"

Natt ran to the door, followed by a dozen pairs of quizzing eyes. The horse was gone. Natt sat down on the post and looked around in blank astonishment.

"Well, I will be domd!" he said.

At last the bogies had him in their grip.



CHAPTER XIII.

By the time that Paul had got to the Ghyll his anxiety had reached the point of anguish. Perhaps it had been no more than a fancy, but he thought as he approached the house that a mist hung about it. When he walked into the hall his footsteps sounded hollow to his ear, and the whole place seemed empty as a vault. The spirit-deadening influence of the surroundings was upon him, when old Dinah Wilson came from the kitchen and looked at him with surprise. Clearly he had not been expected. He wanted to ask twenty questions, but his tongue cleaved to his mouth. The strong man trembled and his courage oozed away.

Why did not the woman speak? How scared she looked, too! He was brushing past her, and up the stairs, when she told him, in faltering tones, that her mistress was gone.

The word coursed through his veins like poison. "Gone! how gone?" he said. Could it be possible that his mother was dead?

"Gone away," said Dinah.

"Away! Where?"

"Gone by train, sir, this afternoon."

"Gone by train," Paul repeated, mechanically, with absent manner.

"There's a letter left, sir; it's on the table in her room."

Recovering his self-possession, Paul darted upstairs at three steps a stride. His mother's room was empty; no fire in the grate; the pictures down from the walls; the table coverless; the few books gone from the shelf; all chill, voiceless, and blind.

What did it mean? Paul stood an instant on the threshold, seeing all in one swift glance, yet seeing nothing. Then, with the first return of present consciousness, his eye fell on the letter that lay on the table. He took it up with trembling fingers. It was addressed in his mother's hand to him. He broke the seal. This is what he read:

"I go to-day to the shelter of the Catholic Church. I had long thought to return to this refuge, though I had hoped to wait until the day your happiness with Greta was complete. That, in Heaven's purposes, was not to be, and I must leave you without a last farewell. Good-bye, dear son, and God bless and guide you. If you love me, do not grieve for me. It is from love of you I leave you. Think of me as one who is at peace, and I will bless you even in heaven. If ever the world should mock you with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last. Good-bye, dear Paul; you may never know the day when this erring and sorrowing heart will be allowed, in His infinite pity, to join the choirs above. Then, dearest, from the hour when you read this letter, think of me as dead, for I shall be dead to the world."

Paul held the letter before him, and looked at it long with vacant eyes. Feeling itself seemed gone. Not a tear came from him, not a sigh, not one moan of an overwrought heart escaped him. All was blind, pulseless torpor. He stood there crushed and overwhelmed, a shaken, shattered man. A thousand horrors congealed within him to one deep, dead stupor.

He turned away in silence, and walked out of the house. The empty chambers seemed, as he went, to echo his heavy footsteps. He took the road back toward the vicarage, turning neither to the right nor the left, looking straight before him, and never once shifting his gaze. The road might be long, but now it fretted him no more. The night might be cold, but colder far was the heart within him. The moon might fly behind the cloud floes, and her light burst forth afresh; but for him all was blank night.

In the vicarage the slumberous fire was smoldering down. The straggle-brained guest had been lighted to his bed, and the good parson himself was carrying to his own tranquil closet a head full of the great world's dust and noise. Greta was still sitting before the dying fire, her heart heavy with an indefinable sensation of dread.

When Paul opened the door his face was very pale and his eyes had a strange look; but he was calm, and spoke quietly. He told what had occurred, and read aloud his mother's letter. The voice was strong in which he read it, and never a tremor told of the agony his soul was suffering. Then he sat some time without speaking, and time itself had no reckoning.

Greta scarcely spoke, and the old parson said little. What power had words to express a sorrow like this? Death had its solace; but there was no comfort for death in life.

At last Paul told Parson Christian that he wished the marriage to take place at once—- to-morrow, or, at latest, the day after that. He told of their intention to leave England, of his father's friend, and, in answer to questions, of the power of attorney drawn up in the name of his brother.

The old man was deeply moved, but his was the most unselfish of souls. He understood very little of all that was meant by what had been done, and was still to do. But he said, "God bless you and go with you!" though his own wounded heart was bleeding. Greta knelt at his chair, and kissed the tawny old face lined and wrinkled and damp now with a furtive tear. It was agreed that the marriage should take place on Friday. This was Wednesday night.

Paul rose and stepped to the door, and Greta followed him to the porch.

"It is good of you to leave all to your brother," she said.

"We'll not speak of it," he answered.

"Is there not something between you?" she asked.

"Another time, darling."

Greta recalled Hugh Ritson's strange threat. Should she mention it to Paul? She had almost done so, when she lifted her eyes to his face. The weary, worn expression checked her. Not now; it would be a cruelty.

"I knew the answer to that omen was somewhere," he said, "and it has come."

He stepped over the threshold and stood one pace outside. The snow still lay under foot, crusted with frost. The wind blew strongly, and soughed in the stiff and leafless boughs. Overhead the flying moon at that moment broke through a rack of cloud. At the same instant the red glow of the fire-light found its way through the open door, and was reflected on Paul's pallid face.

Greta gasped; a thrill passed through her. There, before her, eye to eye with her once again, was the face she saw at the Ghyll!



CHAPTER XIV.

Paul went back home, carrying with him a crushed and broken spirit He threw himself into a chair in a torpor of dejection. When the servants spoke to him, he lifted to their faces two clouded eyes, heavy with suffering, and answered their questions in few words. The maid laid the supper, and told him it was ready. When she returned to clear the cloth, the supper was untouched. Paul stepped up to his mother's room, and sat down before the cold grate. The candle he carried with him burned out.

In the kitchen the servants of the farm and house gossipped long and bickered vigorously. "Whatever ails Master Paul?" "Crossed in love, maybe." "Shaf on sec woman's wit!" "Wherever has mistress gone?" "To buy a new gown, mayhap." "Sista now how a lass's first thowt runs on finery!" "Didsta hear nowt when you drove mistress to the rail, Reuben?" "Nay, nowt." "Dusta say it war thee as drove to the station this afternoon." "I wouldn't be for saying as it warn't." "Wilta be meeting Master Hugh in the forenoon, Natt?" "Nay, ax Natt na questions. He's fair tongue-tied to-neet, Natt is. He's clattering all of it to hisself—swearing a bit, and sec as that."

When the servants had gone to bed, and the house was quiet, Paul still sat in his mother's abandoned room. No one but he knew what he suffered that night. He tried to comprehend the disaster that had befallen him. Why had his mother shut herself in a convent? How should her love for him require that she should leave him? To demand answers to these questions was like knocking at the door of a tomb; the voice was silent that could reply; there came no answer save the dull, heavy, hollow echo of his own uncertain knock. All was blind, dumb, insensate torpor. No outlook; no word; no stimulating pang.

His stupor was broken by a vision that for long hours of that dead night burned in his brain like molten lead. The face which Greta had seen, and which his mother must also have seen, seemed to rise up before him as he sat in that deserted chamber. He saw his own face as he might have seen it in a glass. Not even the blackness of night could conceal it. Clear as a face seen in the day it shone and burned in that dark room. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but it was still before him. It was within him. It was imprinted in features of fire on his brain. He trembled with fear, never until that hour knowing what fear was. It acted upon him like his own ghost.

He knew it was but a phantasy, but no phantasy was ever more horrible. He got up to banish it, and it stood before him face to face. He sunk down again, and it sat beside him eye to eye.

Then it changed. For a moment it faded away into a palpitating mist, and the tension of his gaze relaxed. How blessed was that moment's respite! His thought returned to his mother. "If ever the world should mock you with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last." Dear, sacred soul. Little fear that he should forget it! Little fear that the wise world should tarnish the fair shrine of that holy love! Tears of tenderness rose to his eyes, and in the midst of them he thought his mother sat before him. Her head was bent; an all-eating shame was crimsoning her pale cheek. Then he knew that other eyes were upon her, looking into her heart, prying deep down into her dead past, keeping open the heavy eyelids that could never sleep. He looked up; his own shadow was silently gazing down upon both of them.

Paul leaped to his feet and ran out of the room. Surely the spirit of his mother still inhabited the deserted chamber. Surely this was the shadow that had driven her away. Big drops of sweat rolled in beads from his forehead. He went out of the house. Heavy black clouds were adrift in a stormy sky; behind them, the bright moon was scudding.

He walked among the naked trees of the gaunt wood at the foot of Coledale, and listened to the short breathings of the wind among the frost-covered boughs. At every second step he gave a quick glance backward. But at last he saw the thing he looked for—it was walking with him side by side, pace for pace.

He passed slowly out of the wood, not daring now to run. The white fell rose sheer up to the grim, gray crags that hung in shaggy, snowy masses over the black seams of the ravines; and the moon's light rested on them for an instant. Without thought or aim he began to climb. The ascent was perilous at any hour to any foot save that of a mountaineer. The exertion and the watchfulness banished the vision, and his liberated mind turned to Greta. What was life itself now without Greta's love? Nothing but a succession of days. She was the savior of his outcast state; she was his life's spring, whence the waters of content might flow. And a flood of emotion came over him, and in his heart he blessed her. It was then that on that gaunt headland he seemed to see her at his side. But between them, and dividing them, stalked the spectre of himself.

All to the east was dense gloom, save where the pulsating red of the smelting house burned in the distance. With no rest for his foot, Paul walked in the direction of the light, and the shadow of his face walked with him. As the wind went by him it whistled in his ear, and it sounded in that solitude like the low cry of the thing at his side.

Old Laird Fisher was at his work of wheeling the refuse of the ore from the mouth of the furnace, and shooting it down the bank. The glow of the hot stone in the iron barrow that he trundled was reflected in sharp white lights on his wrinkled face.

"Ista theer, Mister Paul?" he said, catching his breath and coughing amid the smoke, and shouting between the gusts of wind.

The slow beat of the engine and the clank of the chain of the cage in the shaft deadened the wind's shrill whistle. The smoke from the bank shot up and swirled away like a long flight of swallows.

Standing there, the vision troubled him no longer. It had been merely a waking phantasy, bred of what Greta said she saw in the snow, and heightened by the shock to his nerves caused by his mother's departure. The sight of Matthew helped to beat it off. His submissive face was the sign of his broken spirit. A tempest had torn up his only hold on the earth. He was but a poor naked trunk flung on the ground, without power of growth or grip of the soil. He was old and he had no hope. Yet he lived on and worked submissively. Paul's own case was different. Destiny had dashed him in unknown seas against unseen rocks. But he was young, he had the power of life, and the stimulus of love. Yet here he was, the prey to an idle fancy, tortured by an agony of fear.

"Good-night to you, Matthew!" he shouted cheerily above the wind, and went away into the night.

He would go home and sleep the fever out of his blood; he took the road; and as he went, the monotonous engine-throb died off behind him. He passed through the village; the street was empty, and it echoed loud to the sound of his footfall. Large shadows fell about him when for an instant the moon shot clear of a cloud. A light burned in a cottage window. Poor Mrs. Truesdale's sick life was within that sleepless chamber lingering out its last days. The wind fell to silence at one moment, and then a child's little cry came out to him in the night.

He walked on, and plunged again into the darkness of the road beyond. The dogs were howling at the distant Ghyll. A sable cloud floated in the sky, and at its back the moon sailed. It was like black hair silvered with gray. But on one spot on the road before him the moon shone clear and white. The place fascinated him like a star. He quickened his pace until he came into the moon's open light. Then it turned to an ashy tint; it lay over the church-yard. His father's grave was only a few paces from the road.

What unseen power had drawn him there? Was it meant that he should understand that all the stings that fate had in store for him were to be in some unsearchable way the refuse of his father's deed? His mind went back to the night of his father's death. He thought of his mother's confession—a confession more terrible to make more fearful to listen to, than a mother ever made before or a son ever heard. And now again, was the disaster of this very night a link in the chain of destiny?

Let no man compare the withering effects of a father's curse with the blasting influence of a father's sin. If the wrath of Providence should fail in its stern and awful retribution, the world in its mercy would not forget that the sins of the fathers must be visited upon the children.

Paul entered the lych-gate and entered the church-yard. The night dew on his cheeks was not colder than his tears as he knelt by his father's grave. At one instant he cursed the world and the world's cruel law. Then there stole into his heart a poison that corroded its dearest memory: he thought of his father with bitterness.

At that moment a strange awe crept over him. He knew, though still only by the eyes of his mind, that the vision had returned. He knew it was standing against the night-sky as a ghastly headstone to the grave. But when he raised his eyes what he saw was more terrible. The face was before him, but it was a dead face now. He saw his own corpse stretched out on his father's grave.

His head fell on the cold sod. He lay like the dead on the grave of the dead. Then he knew that it was ordered above that the cloud of his father's sin should darken his days; that through all the range and change of life he was to be the lonely slave of a sin not his own. His fate was sin-inherited, and the wages of sin is death.

Was it strange that at that moment, when all the earth seemed gloomed by the shadow of a curse that lay blackest over him—when reverence for a father's memory and love learned at a mother's knee were deadened by a sense of irremediable wrong—was it strange that there and then peace fell on him like a dove from heaven?

Orphaned in one hour—now, and not till now—foredoomed to writhe like a worm amid the dust of the world—the man in him arose and shook off its fear.

It was because he came to know—rude man as he was, unlettered, but strong of soul—that there is a Power superior to fate, that the stormiest sea has its Master, that the waif that is cast by the roughest wave on the loneliest shore is yet seen and known.

And the voice of an angel seemed to whisper in his heart the story of Hagar and her son; how the boy was the first-born of his father; how the second-born became the heir; how the woman and son were turned away; how they were nigh to death in the desert; and how, at last, the cry came from heaven, "God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is."

The horror of the vision had gone. It would come back no more. Paul walked home, went up to his own room, and slept peacefully.

When he awoke the pink and yellow rose of a wintery sunrise bloomed over the head of the Eel Crags. The tinkle of the anvil came from across the vale. Sheep were bleating high up on the frost-nipped side of the fell. The echo of the ax could be heard from the wood, and the muffled lowing of the kine from the shippon in the yard behind. The harsh scrape of Natt's clogs was on the gravel. A robin with full throat perched on the window-ledge and warbled cheerily.

Last night was gone from him for all eternity. Before him was the day, the world, and life.



CHAPTER XV.

That day—the day before the wedding—all the gossiping tongues in Newlands were cackling from morning till night. Natt had been sent round the dale with invitations addressed to statesmen, their wives, sons and daughters. Parson Christian himself made the round of the homes of the poor.

"'The poor ye have always with you,' but not everywhere, and not often in Cana of Galilee," he said to Greta on setting out.

And the people of the highways and hedges were nothing loath to come in to the feast. "God luck to the weddiners!" they said, "and may they never lick a lean poddish-stick."

There was not much work done in the valley that day. The richest heiress on the country-side was about to be married to the richest statesman in the dale. On the eve of such an event it was labor enough to drop in at the Flying Horse and discuss mathematics. The general problem was one in simple addition, namely, how much Paul Ritson would be worth when he married Greta Lowther. And more than once that day twice two made a prodigious five.

The frost continued and the roads were crisp. Heavy rains had preceded the frost, and the river that ran down the middle of the valley had overflowed the meadows to the width of a wide carriage-way. This was now a road of ice five miles long, smooth as glass, and all but as straight as an arrow.

Abraham Strong, the carpenter, had been ordered to take the wheels off a disused landau and fix instead two keels of wood beneath the axles. This improvised sledge, after it had been shod in steel by the blacksmith, was to play a part in to-morrow's ceremony.

Early in the day Brother Peter was dispatched to the town to fetch Mr. Bonnithorne. The four miles' journey afoot seemed to him a bigger candle than the entire game was worth.

"Don't know as I see what the lass wants mair nor she's got," he told himself, grumpily, as he plodded along the road. "What call has she for a man? Hasn't she two of 'em as she is? I made her comfortable enough myself. But lasses are varra ficklesome."

Mr. Bonnithorne gathered enough from Brother Peter's "Don't know as there's not a wedding in t' wind," to infer what was afoot. Hugh Ritson was away from home, and his brother Paul was availing himself of his absence to have the marriage ceremony performed.

This was the inference with which Mr. Bonnithorne had walked from the town; but before reaching the vicarage he encountered Paul himself, who was even then on the way to his office. Few words passed between them. Indeed, the young dalesman was civil, and no more. He gave scant courtesy, but then he also gave something that was more substantial, and the severity of the lawyer's cynicism relaxed. Paul handed Mr. Bonnithorne, without comment, the deed drawn up in London. Mr. Bonnithorne glanced at it, pocketed it, and smiled. His sense of Paul's importance as a dangerous man sunk to nothing at that moment. They parted without more words.

Parson Christian got home toward evening, dead beaten with fatigue. He found the lawyer waiting for him. The marriage had been big in his eyes all day, and other affairs very little.

"So you shall give her away, Mr. Bonnithorne," he said, without superfluous preface of any kind.

"I—I?" said Mr. Bonnithorne, with elevated brows.

"Who has more right?" said the parson.

"Well, you know, you—you—"

"Me! Nay, I must marry them. It is you for the other duty."

"You see, Mr. Christian, if you think of it, I am—I am—"

"You are her father's old friend. There, let us look on it as settled."

Mr. Bonnithorne looked on it as awkward. "Well, to say the truth, Mr. Christian, I'd—I'd rather not."

The old parson lifted two astonished eyes, and gazed at Mr. Bonnithorne over the rims of his spectacles. The lawyer's uneasiness increased. Then Parson Christian remembered that only a little while ago Mr. Bonnithorne had offered reasons why Paul should not marry Greta. They were rather too secular, those same reasons, but no doubt they had appealed honestly to his mind as a friend of Greta's family.

"Paul and Greta are going away," said the parson.

"So I judged."

"They go to Victoria to farm there," continued the parson.

"On Greta's money," added the lawyer.

Parson Christian looked again over the rims of his spectacles. Then for once his frank and mellow face annexed a reflection of the curl on the lawyer's lip. "Do you know," he said, "it never once came into my simple old pate to ask which would find the dross and which the honest labor?"

Mr. Bonnithorne winced. The simple old pate could, on occasion, be more than a match for his own wise head.

"Seeing that I shall marry her, I think it will be expected that you should give her to her husband; but if you have an objection—"

"An objection?" Mr. Bonnithorne interrupted. "I don't know that my feeling is so serious as that."

"Then let us leave it there, and you'll decide in the morning," said Parson Christian.

So they left it there, and Mr. Bonnithorne, the dear friend of the family, made haste to the telegraph office and sent this telegram to Hugh Ritson in London: "They are to be married to-morrow. If you have anything imperative to say, write to-night, or come."

Paul and Greta saw each other only for five minutes that day amid the general hubbub; but their few words were pregnant with serious issues. Beneath the chorus of their hearts' joy there was an undersong of discord; and neither knew of the other's perplexity.

Greta was thinking of Hugh Ritson's mysterious threat. Whether or not Hugh had the power of preventing their marriage was a question of less consequence to Greta at this moment than the other question of whether or not she could tell Paul what Hugh had said. As the day wore on, her uncertainty became feverish. If she spoke, she must reveal—what hitherto she had partly hidden—the importunity and unbrotherly disloyalty of Hugh's love. She must also awaken fresh distress in Paul's mind, already overburdened with grief for the loss of his mother. Probably Paul would be powerless to interpret his brother's strange language. And if he should be puzzled, the more he must be pained. Perhaps Hugh Ritson's threat was nothing but the outburst of a distempered spirit—the noise of a bladder that is emptying itself. Still, Greta's nervousness increased; no reason, no sophistry could allay it. She felt like a blind man who knows by the current of air on his face that he has reached two street crossings, and can not decide which turn to take.

Paul, on his part, had a grave question to revolve. He was thinking whether it was the act of an honorable man to let Greta marry him in ignorance of the fact that he was not his father's legitimate son. Yet he could never tell her. The oath he had taken over his father's body must seal his lips forever. His mother's honor was wrapped up in that oath. Break the one, and the other was no longer inviolate. True, it would be to Greta, and Greta alone, and she and he were one. True, too, his mother was now dead to the world. But the oath was rigid:

"Never to reveal to any human soul, by word or deed, his act, or her shame." He had sworn it, and he must keep it. The conflict of emotion was terrible. Love was dragging him one way, and love the other. Honor said yes, and honor said no. His heart's first thought was to tell Greta everything, to keep nothing back from her whose heart's last thought was his. But the secret of his birth must lie as a dead and speechless thing within him.

If it was not the act of an honorable man to let Greta marry him in ignorance of his birth, there was only one escape from the dishonor—not to let her marry him at all. If they married, the oath must be kept. If the oath were kept, the marriage might be dishonored—it could not be the unreserved and complete union of soul with soul, heart with heart, mind with mind, which true marriage meant. It would be laying the treasure at the altar and keeping back part of the price.

Paul was not a man of subtle intellect, or perhaps such reflections would have troubled him too deeply. Love was above everything, and to give up Greta was impossible. If Circumstance was the evil genius of a man's life, should it be made the god of it also?

At all hazards Paul meant to marry Greta. And after all, what did this question of honor amount to? It was a mere phantasm. What did it matter to Greta whether he were high or basely born? Should he love her less or more? Would he be less or more worthy of her love? And how was his birth base? Not in God's eyes, for God had heard the voice of Hagar's son. Only in the eyes of the world. And what did that mean? It meant that whether birth was high or base depended one part on virtue and nine hundred and ninety-nine parts on money. Where had half the world's titled great ones sprung from? Not—like him—from their father and their father's fathers, but from a monarch's favorite.

Thus Paul reasoned with himself at this juncture. Whether he was wholly right or wholly wrong, or partly right and partly wrong, concerns us not at all. It was natural that such a man, in such a place, at such an hour, should decide once for all to say not a word to Greta. It was just as natural that his reticence should produce the long series of incidents still to be recorded.

Thus it was not a word was said between them of what lay nearest to the hearts of both.



CHAPTER XVI.

The morning was brilliant—a vigorous, lusty young day, such as can awake from the sleep of the night only in winter and in the north. The sun shone on the white frost; the air was hazy enough to make the perspective of the fells more sharp, and leave a halo of mystery to hang over every distant peak and play about every tree.

The Ghyll was early astir, and in every nook and corner full of the buzz of gossip.

"Well, things is at a pass, for sure!" "And never no axings nowther." "And all cock-a-hoop, and no waiting for the mistress to come back." "Shaf, what matter about the mistress—she's no' but a kill-joy. There'd be no merry neet an' she were at home." "Well, I is fair maizelt 'at he won't wait for Master Hugh—his awn brother, thoo knows." "What, lass, dusta think as he wad do owt at the durdum to-neet? Maybe tha's reckoning on takin' a step wi' him, eh?" "And if I is, it's nowt sa strange." "Weel, I wadna be for saying tha's aiming too high, for I mind me of a laal lass once as they called Mercy Fisher, and folks did say as somebody were partial to her." "Hod thy tongue about the bit thing; don't thoo misliken me to sec a stromp!"

Resplendent in a blue cloth coat, light check trousers, a flowered yellow silk waistcoat, and a white felt hat, Natt was flying up and down the stairs to and from Paul's room. Paul himself had not yet been seen. Rumor in the kitchen whispered that he had hardly taken the trouble to dress, and had not even been at the pains to wash. Natt had more than once protested his belief that his master meant to be married in his shirt-sleeves. Nothing but "papers and pens and sealing-wax and things" had he asked for.

Outside the vicarage a motley group had gathered. There was John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, uncommonly awkward in a frock coat and a pair of kid gloves that sat on his great hands like a clout on a pitchfork. Dick, the miller, was there, too, with Giles Raisley, the miner; and Job Sheepshanks (by the way of treaty of peace) stood stroking the tangled mane of Gubblum Oglethorpe's pony. Children hung on the fence, women gathered about the gate, dogs capered on the path. Gubblum himself had been in the house, and now came out accompanied by Brother Peter Ward and a huge black jug. The jug was passed round with distinct satisfaction.

"Is the laal man ever coming?" said Gubblum, smacking his lips and taking a swift survey of the road.

"Why, here he is at sec a skufter as'll brak' his shins!"

At the top of his speed, and breathless, clad in a long coat whose tails almost swept the ground, grasping a fiddle in one hand and a paper in the other, Tom o' Dint came hurrying up.

"Tha's here at last, Tom, ma man. Teem a glass into him, Peter, and let's mak' a start."

"Ye see, I's two men, I is," said the small man, apologetically. "I had my rounds with my letters to do first, and business afore pleasure, you knows."

"Pleasure afore business, say I," cried Gubblum. "Never let yer wark get the upper hand o' yer wages—them's my maxims."

Two coaches came up at the moment, having driven four miles for the purpose of driving four furlongs.

John Proudfoot, without needless courtesy, took the fiddler-postman by the neck of his coat and the garment beneath its tails, and slung him, fiddle and all, on to the saddle of the pony, and held him there a moment, steadying him like a sack with an open mouth.

"Sit thee there as steady as a broody hen; and now let's mak' shift," said the blacksmith.

"But I must go inside first," said the fiddler; "I've a letter for Lawyer Bonnithorne."

"Shaf on thee and thy letter! Away with thee! Deliver it at the church door."

The men dropped into a single file, with Tom o' Dint riding at their head, and Gubblum walking by the pony's side and holding the reins.

"Strike up!" shouted Job Sheepshanks. "Ista ever gaen to begin?"

Then the fiddler shouldered his fiddle, and fell to, and the first long sweeps of his wedding-march awoke the echoes of the vale.

The women and children followed the procession a few hundred yards, and then returned to see the wedding-party enter the coaches.

Inside the vicarage all was noise and bustle. Greta was quiet enough, and ready to set out at any time, but a bevy of gay young daleswomen were grouped about her, trying to persuade her to change her brown broche dress for a pale-blue silk, to have some hothouse plants in her hair, and at least to wear a veil.

"And mind you keep up heart, darling, and speak out your responses; and, dearest, don't cry until the parson gets to 'God bless you!'"

Greta received all this counsel with equal thanks. She listened to it, affected to approve of it, and ignored it. Her face betrayed anxiety. She hardly understood her own fears, but whenever the door opened, and a fresh guest entered, she knew that her heart leaped to her mouth.

Parson Christian stood near her in silk gaiters and a coat that had been old-fashioned even in his youth. But his Jovian gray head and fine old face, beautiful in its mellowness and child-like simplicity, made small demand of dress. He patted Greta's hair sometimes with the affectionate gesture that might be grateful to a fondled child.

Mr. Bonnithorne arrived early, in a white waistcoat and coat adorned by a flower. His brave apparel was scarcely in keeping with the anxiety written on his face. He could not sit down for more than a moment in the same seat. He was up and down, walking to and fro, looking out of the window, and diving for papers into his pocket.

The procession, headed by Tom o' Dint, had not long been gone, when word was given, and the party took to the coaches and set off at a trot. Then the group of women at the gate separated with many a sapient comment.

"Weel, he's getten a bonny lass, for sure."

"And many a sadder thing med happen to her, too."

The village lay midway between the vicarage and the church, and the fiddler and his company marched through it to a brisk tune, bringing fifty pairs of curious eyes to the windows and the doors. Tom o' Dint sat erect in the saddle, playing vigorously, and when a burst of cheering hailed the procession as it passed a group of topers gathered outside the Flying Horse, Tom accepted it as a tribute to his playing, and bowed his head with becoming dignity, and without undue familiarity, always remembering that courtesy comes after art, as a true artist is in loyalty bound to do.

Once or twice the pony slipped its foot on the frosty road, and then Tom was fain to abridge a movement in music and make a movement in gymnastics toward grasping the front of the saddle.

But all went well until the company came within fifty paces of the church door, and there a river crossed the road. Being shallow and very swift, the river head escaped the grip of the frost, and slipped through its fingers. There was a foot-bridge on one side, and the men behind the fiddler fell out of line to cross by it.

Gubblum dropped the reins and followed them; but, as bridges are not made for the traffic of ponies, Tom o' Dint was bound to go through the water. Never interrupting the sweep and swirl of the march he was playing, he gave the pony a prod with his foot, and it plunged in. But scarcely had it taken two steps and reached the depth of its knees, when, from the intenser cold, or from coming sharply against a submerged stone, or from indignation at the fiddler's prod, or from the occult cause known as pure devilment, it shied up its back legs, and tossed down its tousled head, and pitched the musician head-foremost into the stream.

Amid a burst of derisive cheers, Tom o' Dint was drawn, wet as a sack, to the opposite bank, and his fiddle was rescued from a rapid voyage down the river.

Now, the untoward adventure had the good effect of reducing the fiddler's sense of the importance of his artistic function, and bringing him back to consciousness of his prosaic duties as postman. He put his hand into his pocket, feeling as if he had dipped it into a bag of eels, and drew out the lawyer's letter. It was wet, and the ink of the superscription was beginning to run.

Tom o' Dint also began to run. Fearing trouble, he left his unsympathetic cronies, hurried on to the church, went into the vestry, where he knew there would be a fire, and proceeded to dry the letter. The water had softened the gum, and the envelope had opened.

"So much the mair easier dried," thought Tom, and, nothing loath, he drew out the letter, unfolded it, and held it to the fire.

The paper was smoking with the heat, and so was Tom, when he heard carriage-wheels without, and then a mighty hubbub, and loud voices mentioning his own name without reverence: "Where's that clothead of a fiddler?" and sundry other dubious allusions.

Tom knew that he ought to be at the gate striking up a merry tune to welcome the bride. But then the letter was not dry. There was not a moment to lose. Tom spread the paper and envelope on the fender, intending to return for them, and dashed off with his fiddle to the discharge of his artistic duty.

As Tom o' Dint left the vestry, Parson Christian entered it. The parson saw the papers on his fender, picked them up, and in all innocence read them. The letter ran as follows:

"Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square, Nov. 28.

"Dear Bonnithorne,—The man who was in Newlands is Paul Lowther, Greta's half-brother. Paul Ritson is my own brother, my father's son. Keep this to yourself as you value your salvation, your pride, or your purse, or whatever else you hold most dear. Send me by wire to-day the name of their hotel in London, the time of their train south, and who, if any, are with them.

Yours,

"HUGH RITSON."

"P.S.—The girl Mercy will be troublesome."

The parson had scarcely time to understand the words he read, when he, too, was compelled to leave the vestry. The bride and bridegroom had met at the church door. It was usual to receive them at the altar with music. The fiddler's function was at an end for the present. Parson Christian could not allow the fiddle to be heard in church. There a less secular instrument was required. The church was too poor for an organ; it had not yet reached the dignity of a harmonium; but it had an accordion, and among the parson's offices was the office of accordionist. So, throwing his gown over his head, he walked into the church, stepped into the pulpit, whipped up his instrument from the shelf where he kept it, and began to play.

Now it chanced that Mr. Bonnithorne in his legal capacity held certain documents for signature, and having accompanied the bride to the altar rail, he hurried to deposit them in the vestry. The gloom had still hung heavy on his brow as he entered the church. He was brooding over a letter that he had expected and had not received. Perhaps it was his present hunger for a letter that made his eye light first on the one which the fiddler-postman had left to dry. The parson had dropped it on the mantel-shelf. At a glance Mr. Bonnithorne saw it was his own.

Tom o' Dint had been compelled to come up the aisle at the tail of the wedding-party. He saw Mr. Bonnithorne, who was at the head of it, go into the vestry. Dripping wet as he was, and with chattering teeth, the sweat stood on his forehead. "Deary me, what sec a character will I have!" he muttered. He elbowed and edged his way through the crowd, and got into the vestry at last. But he was too late. With an eye that struck lightning into the meek face of the fiddler, Mr. Bonnithorne demanded an explanation.

The request was complied with.

"And who has been in the room since you left it?"

"Nay, nobody, sir."

"Sure of that?"

"For sure," said Tom.

Mr. Bonnithorne's countenance brightened. He had read the letter, and, believing that no one else had read it, he was satisfied. He put it in his pocket.

"Maybe I may finish drying it, sir?" said Tom o' Dint.

The lawyer gave a contemptuous snort, and turned on his heel.

When Paul walked with a firm step up the aisle, he looked fresh and composed. His dress was simple; his eyes were clear and bright, and his wavy brown hair fell back from a smooth and peaceful brow.

Greta, at Paul's side, looked less at ease. The clouds still hung over her face. Her eyes turned at intervals to the door, as if expecting some new arrival.

The service was soon done, and then the parson delivered a homily. It was short and simple, telling how the good bishop had said marriage was the mother of the world, filling cities and churches, and heaven itself, whose nursery it was. Then it touched on the marriage rite.

"I do not love ceremonies," said the parson, "for they are too often 'devised to set a gloss on faint deeds,' and there are such of them as throw the thing they celebrate further away than the wrong end of a telescope."

Then he explained that though the marriage ceremony was unknown to the early Christians, and never referred to in the old Bible, where Abraham "took" Sarah to wife, and Jacob "took" Rachel, yet that the marriage of the Church was a most holy and beautiful thing, symbolizing the union of Christ with His people. Last of all, he spoke of the stainless and pious parentage of both bride and bridegroom, and warned them to keep their name and fame unsullied, for "What is birth to man or woman," said the teacher, "if it shall be a stain to his dead ancestors to have left such offspring?"

Greta bowed her head meekly, and Paul stood, while the parson spoke, with absent eyes fixed on the tablets on the wall before him, spelling out mechanically the words of the commandments.

In a few moments the signatures were taken, the bell in the little turret was ringing, and the company were trooping out of the church. It was a rude old structure, with great bulges in the walls, little square lead lights, and open timbers untrimmed and straight from the tree.

The crowd outside had gathered about the wheelless landau which the carpenter and blacksmith had converted into a sledge. On the box seat sat Tom o' Dint, his fiddle in his hand, and icicles hanging in the folds of his capacious coat. The bride and bridegroom were to return in this conveyance, which was to be drawn down the frozen river by a score of young dalesmen shod in steel. They took their seats, and had almost set off, when Greta called for the parson.

"Parson Christian, Parson Christian!" echoed twenty voices. The good parson was ringing the bell, being bell-ringer also. Presently the brazen tongue ceased wagging, and Parson Christian reappeared.

"Here's your seat, parson," said Paul, making space.

"In half a crack," replied Parson Christian, pulling a great key out of his pocket and locking the church door. He was sexton as well.

Then he got up into the sledge, word was called, the fiddle broke out, and away they went for the river-bank. A minute more and they were flying over the smooth ice with the morning sunlight chasing them, and the music of fifty lusty voices in their ears.

They had the longer journey, but they reached the vicarage as early as the coaches that had returned by the road. Then came the breakfast—a solid repast, fit for appetites sharpened by the mountain air. Parson Christian presided in the parlor, and Brother Peter in the kitchen, the door between being thrown open. The former radiated smiles like April sunshine; the latter looked as sour as a plum beslimed by the earthworms, and "didn't know as he'd ever seen sec a pack of hungry hounds."

After the breakfast the toasts, and up leaped Mr. Bonnithorne. That gentleman had quite cast off the weight of his anxiety. He laughed and chaffed, made quips and cranks.

"Our lawyer is foreclosing," whispered a pert young damsel in Greta's ear. "He's getting drunk."

Mr. Bonnithorne would propose "Mr. and Mrs. Ritson." He began with a few hoary and reverend quotations—"Men are April when they woo, December when they wed." This was capped by "Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives." Mr. Bonnithorne protested that both had been true, only with exceptions.

Paul thanked the company in a dozen manly and well-chosen phrases, and then stepped to the kitchen door and invited the guests over whom Brother Peter presided to spend the evening at the Ghyll.

The ladies had risen and carried off Greta to prepare for her journey, when Gubblum Oglethorpe got on his feet and insisted on proposing "the lasses." What Gubblum had to say on the subject it is not given to us to record. By some strange twist of logic, he launched out on a very different topic. Perhaps he sat in the vicinity of Nancy Tantarum, for he began with the story of a funeral.

"It minds me," he said, "of the carriers at Adam Strang's funeral, at Gosforth, last back-end gone twelvemonth. There were two sets on 'em, and they'd a big bottle atween 'em—same as that one as auld Peter, the honey, keeps to hissel at yon end of the table. Well, they carried Adam shoulder high from the house to the grave-yard, first one set and then t'other, mile on mile apiece, and when one set got to the end of their mile they set down the coffin and went on for t'other set to pick it up. It were nine mile from Branthet Edge to Gosforth, so they had nine shifts atween 'em, and at every shift they swigged away at the big bottle—this way with it, Peter. Well, the mourners they crossed the fields for shortness, but the bearers, they had to keep the corpse road. All went reet for eight mile, and then one set with Adam were far ahead of the other with the bottle. They set the coffin on a wall at the roadside and went on. Well, when the second set came up they didn't see it—they couldn't see owt, that's the fact—same as I expect I'll be afore the day's gone, but not with Peter's good-will, seemingly. Well, they went on, too. And when all of 'em coom't up to the church togither, there was the parson in his white smock and his bare poll and big book open to start. But, you see, there warn't no corpse. Where was it? Why, it was no' but resting quiet all by itsel' on the wall a mile away."

Gubblum was proceeding to associate the grewsome story with the incidents of Paul's appearance at the fire while he was supposed to be in London; but Greta had returned to the parlor, muffled in furs, Paul had thrown on a long frieze ulster, and every one had risen for the last leave-taking. In the midst of the company stood the good old Christian, his wrinkled face wet with silent tears. Greta threw herself into his arms and wept aloud. Then the parson began to cast seeming merry glances around him, and to be mighty jubilant all at once.

The improvised sledge was at the door, laden with many boxes.

"Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!"

A little cheer, a little attempt at laughter, a suppressed sigh, then a downright honest cry, and away they were gone. The last thing seen by Greta's hazy eyes was a drooping white head amid many bright girl faces.

How they flew along. The glow of sunset was now in their faces. It crimsoned the west, and sparkled like gold on the eastern crags. Between them and the light were the skaters drawing the sledge, sailing along like a flight of great rooks, their voices echoing in unseen caverns of the fells.

Mr. Bonnithorne sat with Paul and Greta.

"Where did you say you would stay in London?" he asked.

"At Morley's Hotel," said Paul.

With this answer the lawyer looked unreasonably happy.

The station was reached in twenty minutes. The train steamed in. Paul and Greta got into the last carriage, all before it being full. A moment more, and they were gone.

Then Mr. Bonnithorne walked direct to the telegraph office. But the liquor he had taken played him false. He had got it into his stupefied head that he must have blundered about Morley's Hotel. That was not Paul's, but Hugh's address. So he sent this telegram:

"Left by train at one. Address, Hawk and Heron."

Then he went home happy.

That night there was high revel at the Ghyll. First, a feast in the hall: beef, veal, mutton, ham, haggis, and hot bacon pie. Then an adjournment to a barn, where tallow candles were stuck into cloven sticks, and hollowed potatoes served for lamps. Strong ale and trays of tobacco went round, and while the glasses jingled and the smoke wreathed upward, a song was sung:

"A man may spend And God will send, If his wife be good to owt; But a man may spare And still be bare, If his wife be good to nowt."

Then blindman's buff. "Antony Blindman kens ta me, sen I bought butter and cheese o' thee? I ga' tha my pot, I ga' tha my pan, I ga' all I had but a rap ho' penny I gave a poor auld man."

Last of all, the creels were ranged round the hay-mows, and the floor was cleared of everything except a beer-barrel. This was run into the corner, and Tom o' Dint and fiddle were seated on top of it. Dancing was interrupted only by drinking, until Tom's music began to be irregular, whereupon Gubblum remonstrated; and then Tom, with the indignation of an artist, broke the bridge of his fiddle on Gubblum's head, and Gubblum broke the bridge of Tom's nose with his fist, and both rolled on to the floor and lay there, until Gubblum extricated himself with difficulty, shook his lachrymose noddle, and said:

"The laal man is as drunk as a fiddler."

The vicarage was quiet that night. All the guests save one were gone. Parson Christian sat before the smoldering fire. Old Laird Fisher sat with him. Neither spoke. They passed a long hour in silence.



BOOK III.

THE DECLIVITY OF CRIME.



CHAPTER I.

A way-side hostelry, six miles from London, bearing its swinging sign of the silver hawk and golden heron. It was a little, low-roofed place, with a drinking-bar in front as you entered, and rooms opening from it on either hand.

The door of the room to the left was shut. One could hear the voices of children within, and sometimes a peal of their merry laughter. The room to the right stood open to the bar. It was a smoky place, with a few chairs, a long deal table, a bench with a back, a form against the wall, pipes that hung on nails, and a rough beam across the low ceiling.

A big fire burned in an open grate on a hearth without a fender. In front of it, coiled up in a huge chair like a canoe, that had a look of having been hewn straight from the tree, sat the only occupant of the room. The man wore a tweed suit of the indefinite pattern known as pepper and salt. His hat was drawn heavily over his face to protect his eyes from the glare of the fire-light. He gave satisfactory evidence that he slept.

Under any light but that of the fire, the place must have looked cheerless to desolation, but the comfortless room was alive with the fire's palpitating heart. The rosy flames danced over the sleeper's tawny hair, over the sanded floor, over the walls adorned with gaudy prints. They threw shadows and then caught them back again; flashed a ruddy face out of the little cracked window, and then lay still while the blue night looked in.

An old woman, with a yellow face deeply wrinkled, served behind the bar. Two or three carriers and hawkers sat on a bench before it. One of these worthies screwed up the right side of his face with an expression of cutting irony.

"Burn my body, though, but what an inwalable thing to have a son wot never need do no work!"

The old woman lifted her eyes.

"There, enough of that," she said, and then jerked her head toward the room from whence came measured snores. "He'll be working at throwing you out, some of you, same as he did young Bobby on Sunday sennight."

"Like enough. He don't know which side his bread is buttered, he don't."

"His bread?" said another, an old road-mender, with a scornful dig of emphasis. "His old mother's, you mean. Don't you notice as folks as eat other folks' bread, and earn none for theirselves, never knows no more nor babbies which side the butter is on?"

"Hold your tongue, Luke Sturgis!" said the old woman. "Mayhap you think it's you're pint of half-and-half as keeps us all out of the union."

"Now you're a-goin' to get wexed, Mrs. Drayton. So wot's to prevent me having another pint, just to get that fine son of yourn an extra cigar or so. Hold hard with the pewter, though. I'll drain off what's left, if convenient."

A drowsy-eyed countryman, with a dog snoring at his feet, said:

"Been to Lunnon again," and pointed the shank of his pipe in the direction of the sleeping man. "Got the Lunnon smell on his clothes. I allus knows it forty perches off."

"You're wrong, then, Mr. Wiseman," said the old woman, "and he ain't got no smell of no Lunnon on his clothes this day, anyways. For he's been where there ain't no smell no more nor in Hendon, leastways unless the mount'ins smells and the cataracks and the sheeps."

"The mount'ins? And has Master Paul been along of the mount'ins?"

"Yes; Cummerland, that's the mountains, and fur off, too, I've heerd."

"Cummerland? Ain't that the part as the young missy comes from?"

"Mayhap it is; I wouldn't be for saying no to that."

"So that's the time o' day, is it?" The speaker gave a prolonged whistle and turned a suggestive glance into the faces of his companions. "Well, I allus says to my old woman, 'Bide quiet,' I says, 'and it'll leak out,' and sure enough, so it has."

The landlady fired up.

"And I allus says to your missus, 'Mistress Sturgis,' I says, 'it do make me that wexed to see a man a-prying into other people's business and a-talking and a-scandalizing, which it is bad in a woman, where you expects no better, as the saying is, but it ain't no ways bearsome in a man—and I wish you'd keep him,' I says, 'from poking his nose, as you might say, into other people's pewters.' There—that's what I allus says to your missis."

"And very perwerse of you, too," said the worthy addressed, speaking with the easy good-nature of one who could afford to be rated. "And wot's to prevent me having a screw of twist on the strength of it," putting a penny on the counter.

The landlady threw down the paper of tobacco, picked up the penny, and cast it into the till.

"On'y, as I say, there's no use denying now as Mister Paul Drayton has a finger in the young missy's pie."

"There, that's enough o' that. I told you afore she never set eyes on him till a fortnight come Sunday."

Two women came into the bar with jugs.

"And how is the young missy?" asked the elder of the two, catching up the conversation as the landlady served her.

"She's there," said the landlady, rather indefinitely, indicating with a sidelong nod the room to the left with the closed door.

At that moment the laughter of the children could be heard from within.

"She's merry over it, at any rate, though I did hear a whisper," said the woman, "as she feeds two when she eats her wittals, as the saying is."

The men laughed.

"That's being overcur'ous, mistress," said one, as the woman passed out sniggering.

"Such baggage oughtn't to be taken in to live with respectable people," said the other woman, the younger one, who wore a showy bonnet and a little gay ribbon at her neck.

"And that's being overcharitable," said another voice. "It's the women for charity, especially to one of themselves."

"It's cur'osity as is the mischief i' this world," said the drowsy-eyed countryman. "People talk o' the root o' all evil, and some says drink, and some says money, and some says rheumatis, but I says cur'osity. Show me the man as ain't cur'ous, and he don't go a-poking his nose into every stink-pot, as you might say."

"Of course not," said the gentleman addressed as Luke Sturgis. "And show me the man as ain't cur'ous" he said, with a wink, "and I'll show you the man as is good at a plough and inwalable at a ditch, and wery near worth his weight in gold at gapping a hedge, and mucking up a horse-midden, and catching them nasty moles wot ruin the county worse nor wars and publicans and parsons."



CHAPTER II.

It was Mercy Fisher who sat in the room to the left of the bar, and played with the children, and laughed when they laughed, and tried to forget that she was not as young as they were, and as happy and as free from thought, living as they lived, from hour to hour, with no past, and without a future, and all in the living present. But she was changed, and was now no longer quite a child, though she had a child's heart that would never grow old, but be a child's heart still, all the same that the weight of a woman's years lay upon it, and the burden of a woman's sorrow saddened it. A little older, a little wiser, perhaps, a little graver of face, and with eyes a little more wistful.

A neighbor who had gone to visit a relative five miles away had brought round her children, begging the "young missy" to take care of them in her absence. A curly-headed boy of four sat wriggling in Mercy's lap, while a girl of six stood by her side, watching the needles as she knitted. And many a keen thrust the innocent, prattling tongues sent straight as an arrow to Mercy's heart. The little fellow was revolving a huge lozenge behind his teeth.

"And if oo had a little boy would oo give him sweets ery often—all days—sweets and cakes—would oo?"

"Yes, every day, darling; I'd give him sweets and cakes every day."

"I 'ikes oo. And would oo let him go out to play with the big boys, and get birds' nests and things, would oo?"

"Yes, bird's nests, and berries, and everything."

"I 'ikes oo, I do. And let him go to meet daddy coming home at night, and ride on daddy's back?"

A shadow shot across the girl's simple face, and there was a pause.

"Would oo? And lift him on daddy's shoulder, would oo?"

"Perhaps, dear."

"Oh!" the little chap's delight required no fuller expression.

"Ot's oo doing?"

"Knitting, darling—there, rest quiet on my knee."

"Ot is it—knitting—stockings for oo little boy?"

"I have no little boy, sweetheart. They are mittens for a gentleman."

"How pooty! Ot's a gentleman?"

"A man, dear. Mr. Drayton is a gentleman, you know."

"Oh!" Then after a moment's sage reflection, "Me knows—a raskill."

"Willy!"

"'At's what daddy says he is."

All this time the little maiden at Mercy's side had been pondering her own peculiar problem. "What would you do if you had a little girl?"

"Well, let me see; I'd teach her to knit and to sew, and I'd comb her hair so nice, and make her a silk frock with flounces, and, oh! such a sweet little hat."

"How nice! And would you take her to market and to church, and to see the dolls in Mrs. Bicker's window?"

"Yes, dearest, yes."

"And never whip her?"

"My little girl would be very, very good, and oh! so pretty."

"And let her go to grandma's whenever she liked, and not tell grandpa he's not to give her ha'pennies, would you?"

"Yes ... dear ... yes ... perhaps."

"Are your eyes very sore to-day, Mercy, they are so red?"

But the little one of all was not interested in this turn of the conversation: "Well, why don't oo have a little boy?"

A dead silence.

"Wont oo, eh?"

Willy was put to the ground. "Let us sing something. Do you like singing, sweetheart?"

The little fellow climbed back to her lap in excitement. "Me sing, me sing. Mammy told I a song—me sing it oo."

And without further ceremony the little chap struck up the notes of a lullaby.

Mercy had learned that same song, as her mother crooned it long ago by the side of her cot. A great wave of memory and love and sorrow and remorse, in one, swept over her. It cost her a struggle not to break into a flood of tears. And the little innocent face looked up at the ceiling as the sweet child-voice sung the familiar words.

There was a new-comer in the bar outside. It was Hugh Ritson, clad in a long ulster, with the hood drawn over his hat. He stepped up to the landlady, who courtesied low from behind the counter. "So he has returned?" he said, without greeting of any kind.

"Yes, sir, he is back, sir; he got home in the afternoon, sir."

"You told him nothing of any one calling?"

"No, sir—that is to say, sir—not to say told him, sir—but I did mention—just mention, sir, that—"

Hugh Ritson smiled coldly. "Of course—precisely. Were you more prudent with the girl?"

"Oh, yes, sir, being as you told me not to name it to the missy—"

"He is asleep, I see."

"Yes, sir; he'd no sooner taken bite and sup than he dropped off in his chair, same as you see, sir; and never a word since. He must have traveled all night."

"He did not explain?"

"Oh, no, sir; he on'y called for his cold meat and his ale, sir, and—"

"You see, his old mother ain't noways in his confidence, master," said one of the countrymen on the bench.

"Nor you in mine, my friend," said Hugh Ritson, facing about. Then turning again to the landlady, he said: "Tell him some one wants to speak with him. Or, wait, I'll tell him myself."

He stepped into the room with the sleeping man, and closed the door after him.

"Luke Sturgis," said the landlady, with sudden austerity, "I'll have you know as it's none of your business saying words what's onpleasant—and me his mother, too. What's it you say? Cloven hoof? He's a personable gentleman, if he has got summat a matter with a foot, and a clever face how-an'-ever!"



CHAPTER III.

Alone with the sleeping man, Hugh Ritson stood and looked down at him intently. The fire had burned to a steady glow of red coal without flame. There was no other light in the room.

The sleeper began to stir with the uneasy movement of one who is struggling against the effect of a fixed gaze bent upon him. Then, with a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulders, he sat up in his chair. He tossed his hat back from his forehead, and a tuft of wavy brown hair tumbled over it. His head was held down, and his eyes were on the fire. Hugh Ritson took a step toward him and put one hand on his arm.

"Paul Drayton," he said, and the man shrunk under his touch and slowly turned his face full upon him.

When their eyes met Hugh Ritson saw what he had expected to see—the face of Paul Ritson. In that low, red light, every feature was the same. By the swift impulse of sense it seemed as if it could be the same man and no other; as if Paul Drayton and Paul Ritson were one man.

Drayton got on to his feet with an uncertain shuffle, and then in a moment the hallucination was dispelled. He kicked, with a heavy boot, at the slumbering coals, and the fire broke into a sharp crackle and bright blaze. The white light fell on his face. It was a fine face brutalized by excess. The features were strong, manly, and impressive. What God had done was very good; but the eyes were bleared, and the lips discolored, and the expression, which might have been frank, was sullen.

"I don't wonder that you were tired after your journey; it was a long one," said Hugh Ritson. He affected an easy manner, but there was a tremor in his voice. "You caught the early Scotch mail from Penrith," he added, and drew a bench nearer to the fire and sat down.

Drayton made a half-dazed scrutiny of his visitor, and said:

"Damme, if you're not the fence as was here afore, criss-crossing at our old woman! Tell us your name."

The voice was husky, but it had, nevertheless, a note or two of the voice of Paul Ritson.

"That will be unnecessary," said Hugh Ritson, with complete self-possession. "We've met before," he added, smiling.

"The deuce we have—where?"

"You slept at the Pack Horse at Keswick rather more than a week ago," said Hugh.

Drayton betrayed no surprise.

"Last Saturday night you were active at the fire that almost destroyed the old mill at Newlands."

Drayton's sullen face was immovable.

"By the way," said Hugh, elevating his voice and affecting a sudden flow of spirits, "I owe you my personal thanks for your exertions. What do you drink—brandy?"

Going to the door, he called for a bottle of brandy and glasses.

"Then, again, on Monday night," he added, turning into the room, "you did me the honor to visit my own house."

Drayton was still standing.

"I know you," he said. "Shall I tell you your name?"

Hugh smiled with undisturbed humor. "That also will be unnecessary," he said; and leisurely drew off his gloves.

"What d'ye want? I ain't got no time to waste—that's flat."

"Well, let me see, it's just ten o'clock," said Hugh Ritson, taking out his watch. "I want you to earn twenty pounds before twelve."

Mr. Drayton gave vent to a grim laugh.

"I'll pound it as I'm fly to what that means! You're looking to earn two hundred before midnight."

Mr. Drayton gave Hugh a sidelong glance of great astuteness.

Hugh lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.

"Money is not my object."

"Oh, it ain't, eh? Well, I'm not afraid for you to know as it's mine—very much so." And Mr. Drayton gave vent to another grim laugh.

Mrs. Drayton entered the room at this moment, and set down the brandy, two glasses, and a water-bottle on the deal table.

"Let me offer you a little refreshment," and Hugh took up the brandy and poured out half a tumbler.

"Thankee, thankee!"

"Water? Say when."

But Mr. Drayton stopped the dilution by snatching up his tumbler. His manner had undergone a change. The watchfulness of a ferocious creature dogged and all but trapped gave way to reckless abandonment, bravado and audacity.

"What's the lay?" he said, with a chuckle.

"To accompany a lady to Kentish Town Junction, and see her safe into the midnight train—that's all."

Drayton laughed outright.

"Of course it is," he said.

"The lady will be here shortly before midnight."

"Of course she will."

Hugh Ritson's face lost its smiles.

"Don't laugh like that—I won't have it!"

Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, and then leaned toward Hugh Ritson over the arm of his chair.

"Look here," he said, "it's just a matter o' thirty years gone August since my mother put me into swaddling clothes, and deng my buttons if I'm wearing 'em yet!"

"What do you mean, my friend?" said Hugh.

Drayton chuckled contemptuously.

"Speak out plain," he said. "Give the work its right name. I ain't afraid for you to say it. A man don't give twenty pounds for the like o' that. Not if he works for it honest, same as me. I'm a licensed victualer, and a gentleman—that's what I am, if you want to know."

Hugh Ritson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, whereupon Mr. Drayton again had recourse to the spirit bottle, mentioned afresh his profession and pretensions, and wound up by a relative inquiry, "And what do you call yourself?"

Hugh did not immediately gratify Mr. Drayton's curiosity.

"Quite right, Mr. Drayton," he said; "I know all about you. Shall I tell you why you went to Cumberland?"

Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton took out of his pocket a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to charge a discolored meerschaum pipe.

"Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she had lodged."

Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee; but, as the wice-chairman says, 'we'll take it as read,' so we will."

Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this; but one day you were told by the young girl whom circumstances had cast on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance. That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the misfortune to be poor."

"And I'm not afraid for anybody to know it," interrupted Mr. Drayton. "Come to the point honest. Look here, we are like two hyenas I saw one day at the Zoo. One got a bone in his tooth at feeding time, and blest if the other didn't fight for that bone I don't know how long and all."

"Well," continued Hugh Ritson, with a dubious smile that the cloud of smoke might have hidden from a closer observer, "being a man of spirit, and not without knowledge of the world, having inherited brains, in short, from the parents who bequeathed you nothing else—"

Mr. Drayton puffed volumes, then poured himself half a tumbler of the raw spirit and tossed it off.

—"You determined on seeing if, after all, this were only a fortuitous resemblance."

Mr. Drayton raised his hand. "I am a licensed victualer, that's what I am, and I ain't flowery," he said, in an apologetic tone; "I hain't had the chance of it, being as I'd no schooling—but, deng me, you've just hit it!" And the gentleman who could not be flowery shook hands effusively with the gentleman who could.

"Precisely, Mr. Drayton, precisely," said Hugh Ritson. He paused and watched Drayton closely. That worthy had removed his pipe, and was staring, with stupid eyes and open mouth, into the fire.

"But you found nothing."

"How d'ye know?"

"Your face at this moment says so."

"Pooh! Don't you go along trusting this here time-piece for the time o' day. It ain't been brought up in habits o' truthfulness same as yours."

Hugh Ritson laughed.

"You and I are meant to be friends, Mr. Drayton," he said. "But let us first understand each other. Your idea that you could find your parents in Cumberland was a pure fallacy."

"Eh! Why?"

"Because your mother is dead."

Drayton shook off the stupor of liquor, and betrayed a keen if momentary interest.

"The book of the asylum in which she was confined, after the attempted suicide, contains the record—"

"But she escaped," interrupted Drayton.

"Contains the record of her escape and subsequent recovery—dead. The body was picked out of the river, recognized by the authorities as that of the unknown woman, and buried in the name she gave."

"What name?" said Drayton.

Hugh Ritson's face underwent a momentary change.

"That is indifferent," he said; "I forget."

"Sure you forget?" said Drayton. "Couldn't be Ritson, eh?"

Hugh struck the table.

"Assuredly not—the name was not Ritson."

The tone irritated Mr. Drayton. He glanced down with a look that seemed to say that Hugh Ritson had his Maker to thank for giving him the benefit of an infirm foot.

Hugh Ritson mollified him by explaining that if he had any curiosity as to the name, he could discover it for himself. "Besides," said Hugh, "what matter about the name if your mother is dead?"

"That's true," said Drayton, who, being now appeased, began to see that his anger had been puerile.

"Depend upon it, your father, wherever he is, is a cipher," said Hugh Ritson.

Drayton got on to his feet and trudged the floor uneasily. An idea had occurred to him. "The person picked out of the river may have been another woman. I've heard of such."

"Possibly; but the chance of error is worth little to you." Hugh looked uncomfortable as he said this, but Drayton saw nothing.

"Bah! What matter?" said Drayton, and, determined to cudgel his brains no longer, he reached for the brandy and drank another half glass. There was then an interchange of deep amity.

"Tell me," said Hugh, "what passed at the Ghyll on Monday night?"

"The Ghyll? Monday? That was the night of the snow. What passed? Nothing."

"Why did you go?"

"Wanted to see your mother. Saw your brother one night late at the door of the parson's house. Saw you at the fire. At the fire?—certainly. Stood a matter of a dozen yards away when that young buck of a stableman drove up with the trap. What excuse for going? Blest if I remember—summat or other; knocked, and no one came. I don't know how long and all I stood cooling my heels at the door. Then I saw a light coming from a room on the first floor, and up I went and knocked. 'Come in,' says somebody. I went in. Withered old party got up. Black crape and beads, you know. But, afore I could speak, she reeled like a top and fell all of a heap. Blest if the old girl didn't take me for a ghost!" Mr. Drayton elevated his eyebrows, and added with emphasis, "I got out."

"And on the way back you frightened a young lady in the lane, who, like my mother, mistook you for the ghost of my brother Paul. Well, that young lady was married to my brother this morning. They are now on their way to London. They intend to leave England on Wednesday next, and they mean to pass to-night in your house."

Mr. Drayton's eyebrows went up again.

"It is certainly hard to understand—but look," and Hugh Ritson handed to Drayton the telegram he had received from Bonnithorne. That worthy examined it minutely, back and front, with bleared and bewildered eyes, and then looked to his visitor for explanation.

"The lady must not leave England," said Hugh.

Drayton steadied himself, and tried hard to look appalled.

"Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!" he said. "What do you want for your twenty pounds? Speak out plain. I'm not flowery, I'm not. I'm a licensed victualer and a gentleman—"

"What do I want? Only that you should send the lady home again by the first train."

Drayton began to laugh.

"You see, there was no cause for alarm," said Hugh, with an innocent smile.

Drayton's laughter became boisterous.

"I am to decoy the young thing away by making her believe as I'm her husband, eh?"

"Mr. Drayton, you are a shrewd fellow."

"And what about the husband—ain't he another shrewd fellow?"

"Leave him to me. When the time comes, make no delay. Don't expose yourself unnecessarily. Wear that ulster you have on at present. Say as little as possible—nothing if practicable. Get the lady into the fly that shall be waiting at the door; drive to the station; book her to Keswick; put her into the carriage at the last moment; then clear away with all expedition. The midnight train never stops this side of Bedford."

Drayton was shuffling across the room, chuckling audibly. "He, he, he! haw! haw!—so I'm to leave her at the station, eh? Poor young thing; I hain't got the heart—I hain't got it in me to be so cruel. No, no, I couldn't be such a vagabond of a husband—he, he! haw, haw!—and on the poor thing's wedding day, too."

Hugh Ritson rose to his feet.

"If you go an inch further than the station, you'll repent it to your dying day!" he said, once more bringing down his fist heavily on the table.

At this Drayton chuckled and crowed yet louder, and declared that it would be necessary to have another half glass in order to take the taste of the observation out of his mouth.

Then his laughter ceased.

"Look here: you want me to do a job as can only be done by one man alive. And what do you offer me—twenty pounds? Keep it," he said; "it won't pass, sir!"

The fire had burned very low, the cheerless room was dense with smoke and noisome with the smell of dead tobacco. Drayton buttoned up to the throat the long coat he wore.

"I've summat on," he said; "good-night."

The sound of children's voices came from the bar. The little ones were going home.

"Good-night, missy, and thank you." It was a woman's voice.

"Good-night, Mercy," cried the children.

Drayton was opening the door.

"Think again," said Hugh Ritson. "You run no risk. Eleven forty-five prompt will do."



CHAPTER IV.

When Drayton went out, Hugh Ritson walked into the bar. The gossips had gone. Only the landlady was there. The door to the room opposite now stood open.

"Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "have you ever seen this face before?"

He took a medallion from his pocket and held it out to her.

"Lor's a mercy me!" cried the landlady; "why, it's her herself as plain as plain—except for the nun's bonnet."

"Is that the lady who lodged with you at Pimlico—the mother of Paul?"

"As sure as sure! Lor's, yes; and to think the poor young dear is dead and gone! It's thirty years since, but it do make me cry, and my husband—he's gone, too—my husband he said to me, 'Martha,' he said, 'Martha—'"

The landlady's garrulity was interrupted by a light scream: "Hugh, Hugh!"

Mercy Fisher stood in the door-way, with wonder-stricken eyes and heaving breast.

In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh Ritson's arms with the flutter of a frightened bird.

"Oh, I knew you would come—I was sure you would come!" she said, and dried her eyes, and then cried again, and then dried them afresh, and lifted her pouting lips to be kissed.

Hugh Ritson made no display. A shade of impatience crossed his face at first, but it was soon gone. He tried to look pleased, and bent his head and touched the pale lips slightly.

"You look wan, you poor little thing," he said, quietly. "What ails you?"

"Nothing—nothing, now that you have come. Only you were so long in coming, so very long."

He called up a brave word to answer her.

"But you see I keep my word, little woman," he said, and smiled down at her and nodded his head cheerfully.

"And you have come to see me at last! All this way to see poor little me!"

The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that moment before a radiant smile.

"One must do something for those who risk so much for one," he said, and laughed a little.

"Ah!"

The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond the gift of speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she looked up at his face in silence and with brightening eyes.

"And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said.

"I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expression.

"Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. Drayton here, and her son, and all the smart young fellows of Hendon who came to drink at the bar and say pretty things to the little bar-maid, and—"

"It's not that—I had no one who knew you," she said, and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"But you go out sometimes—into the village—to London?" he said.

"No, I never go out—never now."

"Then your eyes are really worse?"

"It's not my eyes. But, never mind. Oh, I knew you would not forget me. Only sometimes of an evening, when the dusk fell in, and I sat by the fire all alone, something would say, 'He doesn't want me,' 'He won't come for me.' But that was not true, was it?"

"Why, no; of course not."

"And then when the children came—the neighbor's children,—and I put the little darlings to bed, and they said their prayers to me, and I tried to pray, too—sometimes I was afraid to pray—and then, and then," (she glanced round watchfully and dropped her voice) "something would say, 'Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!'"

"You morbid little woman! You shall be happy again—you are happy now, are you not?" he said.

Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of love, looked up at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happiness.

"Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast.

"But you should have taken walks—long, healthy, happy walks," he said.

"I did—while the roses bloomed and the dahlias and things, and I saved so many of them against you would come, moss roses and wild white roses; but you were so long coming and they withered. And then I couldn't throw them away, because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the book you gave me. See, let me show you."

She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book from the table in the inner room. He followed her mechanically, hardly heeding her happy prattle.

"And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make those lonely walks of yours more cheerful?"

She was opening her book with nervous fingers, and stopped to look up with blank eyes.

"Eh? No handsome young fellow who whispered that you were a pretty little thing, and had no right to go moping about by yourself? None? Eh?"

Her old look of weariness was creeping back.

"Come, Mercy, tell the truth, you sly little thing—eh?"

She was fumbling his withered roses with nervous fingers. Her throat felt parched.

He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, as if speaking to himself: "I told that Bonnithorne this hole and corner was no place for the girl. He should have taken her to London."

The girl's heart grew sick. The book was closed and dropped back on to the table.

"And now, Mercy," said Hugh Ritson, "I want you to be a good little woman, and do as I bid you, and not speak a word. Will you?"

The child-face brightened, and Mercy nodded her head, a little tear rolling out of one gleaming eye. At the same moment she put her hand in the pocket of her muslin apron, and took out a pair of knitted mittens, and tried to draw them on to Hugh's wrists.

He looked at the gift, and smiled, and said: "I won't need these—not to-day, I mean. See, I wear long gloves, with fur wristbands—there, I'll store your mittens away in my pocket. What a sad little soul—crying again?"

Mercy's pretty dreams were dying one by one. She lifted now a timid hand until it rested lightly on his breast.

"Listen. I'm going out, but I'll soon be back. I must talk with Mrs. Drayton, and I've something to pay her, you know."

The timid hand fell to the girl's side.

"When I return there may be some friends with me—a lady and a gentleman—but I want to see them alone, quite alone, and I don't want them to see you—do you understand?"

A great dumb sadness was closing in on Mercy's heart.

"But they will soon be gone, and then to-morrow you and I must talk again, and try to arrange matters so that you won't be quite so lonely, but will stir about, and see the doctor for your eyes, and get well again, and try to forget—"

"Forget!" said the girl, faintly. Her parched throat took away her voice.

"I mean—that is to say—I was hoping—of course, I mean forget all the trouble in Cumberland. And now get away to bed like a good little girl. I must be off. Ah, how late!—see, a quarter to eleven, and my watch is slow."

He walked into the bar, buttoning up his coat to his ears. The girl followed him listlessly. Mrs. Drayton was washing glasses behind the counter.

"Mind you send this little friend of mine to bed very soon," said Hugh to the landlady. "Look how red her eyes are! And keep a good fire in this cozy parlor on the left—you are to have visitors—you need not trouble about a bedroom—they won't stay long. Let me see, what do they say is the time of your last up-train?"

"To London? The last one starts away at half past twelve," said the landlady.

"Very good. I'll see you again, Mrs. Drayton. Good-night, Mercy, and do keep a brighter face. There—kiss me. Now, good-night—what a silly, affectionate little goose—and mind you are in bed and asleep before I return, or I shall be that angry—yes, I shall. You never saw me angry. Well, never mind. Good-night."

The door opened and closed. Mercy went back into the room. It was cheerless and empty, and the children's happy voices lived in it no more. The girl's heart ached with a dull pain that had never a pang at all, but was dumb and dead and cold; and Mercy was all alone.

"Perhaps he was only in fun when he said that about walking out with somebody and trying to forget, and not being seen," she thought. "Yes; he must have been only in fun," she thought, "because he knew how I waited and waited."

Then she took up again the book that he had hardly glanced at. It fell open at a yellow, dried-up rose that had left the stain of its heart's juice on the white leaf.

"Yes, he was only in fun," she said, and then laughed a little; and then a big drop fell on to the open page and on to the dead flower.

Then she tried to be very brave.

"I must not cry; it makes my eyes, oh! so sore. I must get them well and strong—oh, yes! I must be well and strong against—against—then."

She lifted her head slowly where she stood alone, and a smile, like a summer breeze on still water, rippled over her mouth.

"He kissed me," she thought, "and he came to see me—all this long, long way."

A lovely dream shone in her face now.

"And if he does not come again until—until then—he will be glad—oh, he will be very glad!"

The thought of a future hour when the poor little soul should be rich with something of her own that would be dearest of all because not all her own, shone like a sleeping child's vision in her face. She went out into the bar and lighted a candle.

"So that's your sweetheart—not the lawyer man, eh?" said Mrs. Drayton, bustling about.

"I've no call to hide my face now—not now that he has come—have I?" said Mercy.

"Well, he is free of his money, and I'se just been hoping you get some of it, for, as I says, you want things bad, and them as has the looking to it should find 'em, as is only reasonable."

Mercy did as she had been bidden: she went off to her bedroom. But her head was too full of thoughts for sleep. She examined her face in the glass, and smiled and blushed at it because he called it pretty. It was prettier than ever to her own eyes now. After half an hour she remembered that she had left the book on the table in the parlor, and crept down-stairs to recover it. When she was on the landing at the bottom, she heard a hurried knock at the outer door.

Thereafter all her dreams died in an instant.



CHAPTER V.

When Hugh Ritson stepped out into the road, the night was dark. Fresh from the yellow light of the inn, his eyes could barely descry the footpath or see the dim black line of the hedge. The atmosphere was damp. The moisture in the air gathered in great beads on his eyebrows and beard, stiffening them with frost. It was bitterly cold. The mist that rose from the river spread itself over the cold, open wastes of marshy ground that lay to the right and to the left. The gloomy road was thick with half-frozen mud.