be such an ass?" thought he. He was still a strong man, and his cudgel was heavy, but his bones were growing stiff, as he knew. The old mare went sliding on through the thick mud and the streams which poured down the road, and at one place came to a dead halt. He listened, and thought he heard horses' steps ahead, and pressed on, hoping it might be Buxton, but his progress was slow.

He had reached a dark part of the road, where the trees, leafless though they were, shut out even the little that remained of the dim evening light. The mare stumbled over a big stone, which must have been placed there on purpose, in the bed of a watercourse which crossed the road, and over which the torrent was rising. Before he recovered himself he had received a violent blow from behind on the back of his head. He turned stoutly to defend himself, but his foot had been jolted out of the stirrup with the stumble. A second blow disabled his arm; and in another minute he was dragged off his horse, while the cudgel was descending a third time.

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CHAPTER XVII.

WATCHING ON A WINTER'S NIGHT.

He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend

A labour working to an end.

The Two Voices.

MASTER BUXTON's been back this two hours and more," said German, coming into the kitchen at Stone Edge dripping wet from the farm below, where his father had told him to meet him for company across the lone moor.

"He says feyther were a sitting drinking when he come away and couldn't be got off nohow. He kep' on saying he'd be arter 'um in no time.”

The women looked aghast.

"Thee'st been o' thy legs a' day, German-thou'st like to be drowned, my lad," said Lydia, sadly. "Dost thee think thee couldst go to th' Mill and meet un? An he's in liquor he'll ne'er get back safe, wi' all that money too. Seek to keep him there an thee canst, and come on i' th' morning.

Tak' my cloak about thee, and a sup o' elder wine."

The lad took a lantern and the cape, and went off on his doleful quest. When he reached the valley, however, no one had seen or heard of Ashford at the few houses near the road, and it was nearly ten o'clock when he reached the toll-bar.

"Nay, I've seen none of thy feyther, more shame for him. Come in and dry thysen," said the man. "Thou canstna miss him here. Why, thee'lt melt away to nothing, thee'rt so wet!"

German looked wistfully at the warm fire within -he had been on his feet ever since five that morning. He pulled off his wet blouse and trousers, which he hung up before the fire, and then lay down on the settle while they dried. In a moment he was fast asleep.

Meanwhile the two women watched and waited. The ruddy light of the fire played over the wide old kitchen, touching a bright point here and there, and making a Rembrandt picture with all the interest collected into the warm brilliancy of the centre, and black depths and dancing shadows gathering mysteriously in the further corners. They sat and span, and the whirring of the wheels was all the sound

that was heard in the house. It is surprising how few candles are used in farmhouses and cottages: unless there is needle-work to be done, fire-light serves in winter, and in summer they go to rest and rise with the sun. The wind rose as the night went on and the fire sank. At last even the spinning stopped, and Lydia and Cassandra sat on in the gloom. But few words were exchanged between them; death and misery, and care and ruin, were hanging over them by the turning of a hair, and they were bracing themselves, each in her different way, to meet them.

"Dear heart o' me, it's a fierce night both for man and beast," said Lydia at last. "I wonder where German's got to by now a struggling through

the mire."

"I'd reether be him," answered Cassie with a sigh; "it's harder work to ha' to sit still and hear the wild winds shoutin' round us o' this fashion."

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The storm is tremenduous to-night, surely. We mun look the candle ain't blowed out towards the moor," observed Lydia. She had put up her little lighthouse as usual in the front room, sheltering it carefully from the blasts, which were almost as violent inside the house as without, by a fortification

of pans and jugs, and its welfare required from time to time looking after. The great fear that underlay everything in their thoughts was put into words by neither of them. The winter's wind howled and sighed, and moaned and struggled round the house with a sort of fitful angry vehemence. A storm easily became almost a whirlwind on that exposed spot, and shook and rattled the unshuttered casements till it seemed as if they would have been driven in. There seemed to the women to be wailing cries sometimes in the howling of the blast, which shook the door and the windows with the sort of pitiful fierce longing to get in, which makes it seem almost like a personal presence. It is an eerie thing to sit in the dark in a lonely house on such a night, when all the spirits and ghosts and powers of the air of early belief seem to be natural :

Those demons that are found

In fire, air, flood, and under ground

appeared to be all abroad. We have nearly forgotten the awe which Nature inspired when man struggled weak and alone with her mighty powers, and was generally worsted as it seems, in the days of cave and lake dwellers, and makers of flint weapons. We judge of her, beaten, cabined, and confined, as we see