ay, even where they're gone to-an ye took to bad ways."

"I'll do my best," said Roland, in a low voice, with a sigh.

"I'm thinkin': o' goin' away for a bit," said Nathan, after a pause. ""Tain't lively livin' here my lane, wi' nobody to fettle me and the cow; and my niece Martha she just worrits me to come to her to try. I've a had one cold atop of the other as I could hardly stir wi' the rheumatics, and she says I shall be a deal better in her house, as it's warmer."

"Hav' ye seen owt o' Cassie ?" said Roland with an effort, noticing that he avoided speaking of her.

"She come down when her father were a dying to the 'Miner's Arms' for to see the last on him, but I didn't set eyes on her. I'd hurted my foot and couldn't get down. You'd best not think o' her, my lad, belike; what can there be atwixt her and thee now?" And so they parted.

The next night Joshua and his son made a "midnight flitting" through the back lane. There was a horse still left of the old man's former possessions and a rude little cart, in which they drove forth together into the wide world. All was still as Roland looked his last at his old home, still and cold; there

was little light but the reflection from the snow, and familiar objects look doubly strange under the cover of starlight and mantle of white snow. He looked up at the hills and down the valley towards Stone Edge with a cold grip at his heart as the old man drove away as rapidly as the horse would go, with a glance over his shoulder as they went, "fearing though no man pursued." The crunching of the snow under their wheels was all the sound they heard; still and cold, on into the dreary night they drove. "Shall I never see her again?" Roland moaned in his heart, but he did not utter a word.

CHAPTER XX.

A FUNERAL FEAST IN THE SNOW.

Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water.

GERMAN had remained at the little public till the inquest was over, to give evidence and bring home the body afterwards to Stone Edge. The night was falling and the snow had begun, as wet and weary he toiled up the long rough moorland road with his dismal charge.

"Did aught come out as to who could ha' done such a thing?" said Cassie, anxiously, as he came into the house at Stone Edge.

"It must ha' been summun as knowed he'd so much money about un," observed Lydia, sadly.

"They all knowed that pretty much i' th' market," said the lad, a little impatiently; "but they made it out upo' th' inquest it were a horsedealer man as were wrangling wi' him best part o' th' arternoon."

""Tain't nobody in these parts as would go for to

do such a wicked thing, I'm main sure o' that," put

in Cassie, warmly.

"There were a deal o' talk about Joshua, however, for a' that," answered her brother, reluctantly; "but the Crowner he says says he, 'When ye hae got a man, a foreigner like, ready to yer hand as 'twere for th' murder, what for would ye go worriting and winnowing for to drag another man in as is o' the countryside ?'”

The women looked thunderstruck-no one spoke for a few minutes-Lydia glanced silently at Cassie's white face, and they then went about their dreary tasks without a word.

"Ye mun be bidding the folk for the buryin', and gettin' in a' things for to be ready, German," said Lydia, with a sigh, later in the evening. "We ordered flour at the miller's as we came up the moor. I doubt it'll tak' a score to fulfil* un all; and we mun be thinking o' the burial-buns to-morrow."

The preparations for a funeral feast in the hills are a serious matter, demanding much thought and labour, which kept both the women for the next few days from dwelling on the past. "Yer feyther settled his bearers, and the beer, and the spirits,

*"Fulfil "-in this sense used in the Communion Service.

and all, and runned over them scores and scores o' "And he left the money

times to me," said Lydia. for it another time (for a' he were so pushed) i' a hole i' the garret where he telled me: for he said he'd like for to hae his buryin' comfable, and the grave dug north and south; so ye'll see to it, German," said she, most conscientiously desirous to accomplish the old man's wishes. There was not any great difference between his ideas of a future state and those of the ancient Briton whose bones reposed under the cairn on the further hill, with a drinking-mug on one side and the bones of a horse on the other interred with him.

A "burying" at Stone Edge was a tremendous operation in winter. There was no graveyard at the solitary little chapel below, and the bodies had to be carried nearly five miles across the lone moor-down a hill on the top of which was a cairn, and which was almost like a house-side for steepness-where the path, covered with "pavers" probably existing since the days of the ancient Britons who raised the monument, was too precipitous and too narrow for a cart. Relays of bearers, and consequently relays of beer, were required the whole way. There was a great fall of snow, but on the day of the "buryin'" the sun shone out and the glitter was almost painful. There