night, else we shanna get him home at a'.

There's

more storms coming up, and the snow'll fall when the wind lulls," added Cassie.

"Sure it'll be here afore morning; the wind's uncommon nipping," said the landlady, as the two women walked silently away.

It is more mournful on such occasions not to be able to regret. Not to grieve, not to suffer loss, was the real woe, as they wound their sad way home in the chill bleak winter's day, with a dull sort of nameless pain at their hearts.

The absence of complaint is very remarkable in the peasant class: they mostly take the heaviest shock quietly, as coming immediately "from the hand of God," and bear it quite simply as a plain fact whose right and wrong they do not question. Heaven seems very real and near to the best of them.

CHAPTER XIX.

A MIDNIGHT "FLITTING."

As when a soul laments, which has been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years;
The yearnings which can never be exprest

By sighs or groans or tears.-TENNYSON.

THE backs of all the houses on one side the single street of which Youlcliffe was composed opened upon lonely fields, and Joshua's was particularly well adapted to his wants. The one-eyed front stood at a corner of the grey old market-place, not too much overlooked, yet seeing everything. Alongside the dwelling-house opened the deep dark stone archway which led into a labyrinth of cattle-sheds and pens, beyond which lay a small croft for the use of his beasts, abutting on a blind lane which led to the high-road into Youlcliffe. Walls in this district are built to clear the fields of stone, and the stones had been so abundant here that a man passing along the path in the lane was completely concealed by the high walls. His comings and goings

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were therefore almost as free as if he had lived in the open country, his beasts were brought in and let out behind the house at his pleasure and no one was much the wiser, while the wide gate under the archway was always kept locked. Through this back way in the drenching rain Joshua passed out on his "affairs" that evening, and through it he returned. He was alone in the house, for he had sent Roland away upon some pretext; he was wet through, and he changed everything, and went out again into the town. It was not yet above six o'clock. 'A' that in such a little while," he went on saying to himself with a shudder-"such a little while!" He looked. in at the public, got his gin, and inquired for the horsedealer. He went to the chemist's and bought a ha'porth of peppermint, as he said he had the colic, and then home, where he sat quaking-“ with cold," as he told himself. When his son came in he went to bed, saying that he was ailing, which was perfectly true. Roland could not make him out at all. The next morning he came back in great agitation to the kitchen, where his father sat moodily stooping over the fire, half-dressed, his kneebreeches undone, his velveteen jacket unbuttoned.

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They say as Farmer Ashford were robbed last

night o' all that money as were Cassie's, and welly murdered too; they say 'twere the horsedealer drinking wi' him as done it. I ha' been up to the turning i' th' road for to see the place; but they'd ha' fetched him away afore daylight. There were his blood about still, though," he said, pityingly.

It was close to the place where he had asked Cassie to marry him; but he kept this in his own heart.

"What, he's not dead?" said Joshua, looking up at his son for the first time. It seemed to take a weight off his mind. "I'd a heerd tell on it afore," he added, in great confusion.

A horrible dread flashed over Roland's mind. He suddenly remembered that he had heard a stranger's voice the day before quarrelling with his father among the cattle-sheds as he himself was going out of the house into the market-place with a beast which was to be sold; he fancied that he knew the voice, but he could not at the moment recollect to whom it belonged, and a quarrel for Joshua on market-day was too common for it to interest him much. He now felt sure that the horsedealer Jackman had been there, and he remembered how his father had come to him hurriedly later in the day and sent him off on an errand concerning some cattle to a village

several miles off, without much apparent reason -evidently, he saw now, to get him out of the way. He turned off in his agony down into the yard when he came back the kitchen was empty. Joshua had dressed himself and gone out into the town. He went straight to the centre of all news, the public. A group of men stood round the door discussing the murder.

"There were an ill-looking chap as were quarrelling wi' him best part of the arternoon," said one, "a strivin' to keep him late."

"It were that horsedealer as they said come from Then Ashford were

York; I never seen a worser.

so contrairy like," said another.

"I hadn't the speech o' him a' yesterday, nor for weeks back," said Joshua, which was quite true, and then he went home. He was a singularly active man for his age: he had been a celebrated morrisdancer, and famous for feats of strength and agility in his time, and boasted much of his powers; but now he seemed thoroughly worn out. Roland found him fumbling among the things on the dresser. "I want some tea," said he, "wi' my gin," and his son knew things must be very bad; his father took refuge in tea only as a last resource. As he