Into the Highways and Hedges

Tom had taught Meg to drive a little; she managed to harness Molly with some difficulty, and started on the long, lonely road across the marshes, without any fears. She was never afraid of bodily danger.

She was not a good driver, her wrists were too weak; they ached painfully before she was a quarter of the way to N——town, and Molly began to feel them "give," and pulled the harder, recognising that the person at the other end of the reins had not so tight a hand as Tom.

Another hour passed; Meg bit her lips hard, and grew rather pale with the effort she was making to remain mistress of the situation. Molly seemed bent on pulling her arms out. The reins cut her fingers; but what did that matter, when every minute was a minute nearer her father? The road was level and unfrequented, which was fortunate, for she could not possibly have managed the mare downhill.

This last reflection had just occurred to her, when the pace decreased, giving her a momentary sense of relief, followed, however, by the horrible discovery that Molly was going very lame.

A huge, sharp-pointed flint had lodged in the horse's shoe; and what to do now the poor driver really didn't know. The cart was high, and Molly was bad at standing; but Meg pulled up in desperation at last, tied the reins to the seat, and sprang down from the wheel.

Molly actually did condescend to stop for a minute, though she eyed Meg very suspiciously, with her ears well back. Meg picked up an old bit of iron and advanced cautiously.

"Good horse! so then—quiet there!" she said, with a keen sense of her inadequacy, and of Molly's entire and contemptuous consciousness of it. She knelt on the road, and very softly took hold of Molly's fore-leg. Molly snorted, and stamped impatiently. "Tom lifts her foot right up with his left hand, and knocks the stone out with his right," Meg said to herself; "but if Molly won't move that foot, what is one to do?" She pulled gently, making what were meant to be encouraging and reassuring noises, when, at the critical moment, a loud guffaw burst from behind the low mud bank on her left. Molly, started, made a dash forward; and Meg found herself sitting in the very middle of the dusty high road, watching horse and cart disappearing in the distance.

She rubbed her eyes, which were sore with the dust (it was wonderful that she had not been hurt), and mechanically straightened her bonnet; then, becoming aware that one of the farm men, "Long John" by name, was standing staring at her, the ludicrous side of the situation struck her forcibly, and she began to laugh, though with a laughter that was perilously near tears.

"Eh, ma'am, I be main sorry," said Long John. "I doan't knaw how I came to be such a darned fool. It was hearin' yo' talkin' to Molly so soft, like as if she wur a Christian, as set me off smilin'; but I didn't think as she'd ha' tuk to her heels like that, and Maister Tummas he wull be in a takin'!"

"Oh, if you will only catch her!" cried Meg. "Do you think that she has upset the cart? Let us go after her directly."

She got up, and began to run, Long John following with huge strides and muttered ejaculations.

Luckily, Molly had not gone far. They found her about half a mile on.

"I wonder whether she will let you take the stone out?" said Meg; whereat John smiled again, but grew grave when he had examined the foot.

"You've been and gone and done it! It's a bad job; she'll not be fit to use for the next month at best. Lord now! to think o' Maister Tummas trustin' ye wi' Molly!"

"What had better be done?" said Meg. She leaned against the cart, out of breath with running, while the sun beat down on them, and Molly munched contentedly, and John entered into an endless disquisition, in which he conclusively proved that if they drove Molly the twelve miles back to the farm now, she would be probably lamed for life, and "Maister Tummas" would never get over it; and he, John, wouldn't be the one to do it! And if they took her on the three remaining miles to N——town, and put her up there for a night's rest, there would be keep and stabling to pay for, and he would not take the responsibility; and, if they stayed where they were, they were just losing time, when the "poor crittur" ought to be looked to at once, and nothing could be "worserer nor that".

"Then we are sure to be doing wrong anyhow, and there doesn't seem to be a right way?" said the preacher's wife.

"I wouldn't say as there wur, but there be two bad ways, an' it's for yo' to choose, ma'am."

Long John resented the "we," and was determined not to be implicated.

"I wouldn't ha' ye take my word, nor I'd not ha' Maister Tummas suppose as I had aught to do wi' it. It's for yo' to say."

"I am going on, whatever happens," said she; and on they went.

John took Molly at a foot's pace, and Meg walked at his side.

He had begun a long story, to which her ears gave a sort of mechanical attention, while her heart kept urging her to walk faster towards the goal.

"It wur your a-layin' hold of her leg as set the mare off," John was saying. "You wouldn't go fur to say as it wur anyways my fault, would 'ee, ma'am? for Maister Tummas he be fond o' her, and, if I wur to lose th' place now, wi' my missus lookin' to be i' th' straw come Michaelmas, it 'ud go hard wi' us surely."

"It was no one's fault but mine," said Meg. "Oh, when shall we get there?—You seem very much afraid of Mr. Thomas, John; I thought he was supposed to be such a good master."

"Oh, so he be, so he be," said John. "The Thorpes be good maisters, good friends, an' good enemies. They stick to a mon, they do; not one belongin' to 'em has been let die i' th' union without it wur his own fault; but Maister Tummas he doan't use many words when he's angry, and he ain't often; but I'd not care to face him if I'd lamed Molly, for last time I broke th' pony's knees he says to me, 'Next time ye'll go, John!' And he means what he says. And he did near drown me then! So he did! and I did think o' havin' the law o' him, but he advised me not, and Maister Tummas' advice is allus good; he's precious sharp.

"It wur through bein' a bit overtook at Mary's funeral. I come whoam late, and I doan't mind rightly just how it wur, but I lost the pony on the road, and all of a suddent I found mysel' under th' pump i' th' yard; and Maister Tummas wur turnin' the water on, and another mon wur holdin' me under. Eh, I thought he had murdered me! afore he let me go, I can tell thee, I hollered out loud, wheniver my mouth was clear o' th' watter, and he says, 'Naw, naw, doan't let him off too soon; when he's swallowed as much water as he did rum, happen he'll remember it'. I tell 'ee, I walked back whoam straight; he scared me sober, but it wur a cowd winter's mornin', and I wur wet through and through, as if I'd been in th' river an hour, an' I think he near drownt me. I'd ha' sworn he wur within an inch o' it. And th' next mornin' I thinks it ower, and I goes to him and says I, 'Maister, I wur a bit overtook last neet, but ye'd no right to do that, if I wur; for I bain't no slave, I be a free Briton as much as thaesel''. And Maister Tummas looks at me so as I had to keep tellin' mysel' I wur bigger nor he, fur th' way he looks do mak' a mon feel growin' small; an' says he, 'So ye be, John! Free to be as drunk as a lord all th' day long, if 'ee likes!' An' says I, 'I'm thinkin' I'll ha' th' law on ye, Maister Tummas;' and says he, 'Then ye'll be a bigger fool nor ye look'.

"'Yo're cruel hard on a mon as has been buryin' his child,' says I; and Maister Tummas laughs. 'I suppose ye think she's so well off, ye'll be sendin' the other to join her?' says he. 'What do 'ee mean?' I asks. 'I never heard as childer con live on grass,' says he, turnin' round serious like; 'nor as bread cud be got for naught; it doan't grow i' th' fields hereabouts, ready baked! If I'd gi'en ye the sack i'ste'd o' the pump, where 'ud they be, eh? Look 'ee here, if ye be a wise mon, ye'll go to work wi'out more words; an' if ye be a fool, ye con go an' spout about free Britons i' the public; but, if 'ee do that, doan't talk to me about your childer, for I shan't tak' 'ee back, an' your big words won't fill their empty stomachs.' So I went back, an' Maister Tummas an' I war quits; for he doan't niver cast a thing up when he's done wi' it. Clemmin' ain't pleasant, an' I hadn't much hankerin' for it arter all. Howsumever, I doan't drink when I've got his horses now. Naw, naw; I saves up for Sunday; an' I bain't sure as it ain't th' best way all round, to tak' one's fill on th' right day. One gets a more thorough satisfaction out o' one big drink, than i' sips all th' week; doan't 'ee think so, ma'am?"

"I daresay," said Meg absently. A passing wonder as to what Barnabas would have said to this definition of Sunday as pre-eminently "th' right day for drink" floated through her mind—with also a faint disgust at the flavour of brutality in the story about Tom; but they were nearing N——town by this time. In two more hours she might be at Lupcombe!

It was market day, and the streets were crowded. Meg accompanied Long John to the stables of the "Pig and Whistle," and saw Molly comfortably housed. Having lamed her, it was the least she could do. Then she proceeded to a pawnbroker's. She had the preacher's savings in her pocket, but she could not touch them. It might be a straining of gnats; but she wouldn't use his money in an enterprise he objected to.

She had something else in her purse as well, and that she would part with, though the parting cost her a pang.

The diamond-circled miniature that had been stolen from her when a child; that the preacher had brought back; that was on her neck, when he and she walked out of Ravenshill together, long, long ago—ah, how long ago it seemed now!—she could sell that.

Meg had worn it under her dress every day, and always since she had married. She had never told Barnabas that she still had it; she had not forgotten his violent denunciation of the stones bought "with too high a price"; but she had kept it for her father's sake, and for her father's sake she would let it go now.

The diamonds were valuable. The miniature itself was worth a good deal. Meg did not know how much she ought to get for it, but had a vague idea that it would more than pay for a carriage and horse to Lupcombe, and for the return journey, and Molly's stabling. As a matter of fact, she received rather less than a sixth part of its real value; but it was a red-letter day for the pawn-broker. She was on the direct road to Lupcombe at last. She would see her father—beyond that?—well, beyond that might be the deluge.

Mrs. Russelthorpe sat by the window of her brother's room. It was a pretty room; for the guest-room of the parsonage was emphatically "the best bedroom" of the house.

She had come down at once on hearing of his illness, but now the patient was surprisingly better. That most sadly hopeful of diseases had loosened its hold, and Mr. Deane was as cheerful as possible; indeed, his sister found him almost irritatingly contented. She was anxious to get him away from this dangerous neighbourhood. She knew that the Thorpes lived somewhere in the county; but he, alas! had not the faintest desire to move.

She sat and embroidered, her long fingers moving the faster when she thought; her lips compressed closely. When she glanced at Charles her face softened. She loathed a sick room; but she was fond of him, even when he was ill.

His features, refined by illness, were more painfully like Meg's than ever; and that made her impatient.

Certainly she had enough to bother her! Mrs. Russelthorpe could not bear accepting favours from any one, and here she was compelled to stay under the stranger's roof indefinitely!

Charles took it very lightly. He was grateful to his old friend; but the obligation did not harass him. He was generous and very hospitable himself, and would have done as much for his host if the circumstances had been reversed. Besides, he was one of the people who are born favourites; and even strangers always gave him willing service. As the old housekeeper remarked, "Mr. Deane was such a gentleman as it was an honour and pleasure to do for".

There had been some coldness between him and his sister of late, for he had strongly disapproved her threatened action concerning her husband's will.

"It is not like any of us to take to airing family grievances in public," he had said proudly; and his reproof had impressed her.

Charles seldom played the part of mentor; but on the rare occasions when he did, his words always stung, though they seldom made her alter her course.

Presently he woke up and called her. "Sis, I wish you would put down that work and come nearer; that is"—with the quick thoughtfulness for other people which never deserted him—"if you won't go out and get some fresh air; you hate a sick room, I know. Really, it was very good of you to come."

"I can't sit with my hands before me," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; but she brought her chair up to the bedside. "You mustn't talk too much, Charles."

"On the whole," said Mr. Deane smiling, "I should prefer dying of talking, to dying of dulness."

"There is no question of dying!"

"No," he answered. "I feel like Mother Hubbard's dog; 'she went to the joiner's to buy him a coffin; and, when she came back, the dog was a-laughin''. I'm getting well with indecent haste! I shall go downstairs soon; but, all the same, there was a question of it three days ago,—as we both know well enough!"

"The danger is past now, and there is no need to dwell on it," said his sister, with a sharp closing of the subject, and with that accent of finality in her voice which Charles was generally either too sweet-tempered or too lazy to resist.

To-day, however, he persisted, though he stretched out his hand towards her, with the half-playful tenderness that endeared him especially to the women of his own family.

"Poor sis! You hate to be reminded that I am mortal; and, what is more, a mortal with an even less certain tenure of life than most; but I don't want to shirk facts myself; indeed, they've presented themselves so very forcibly lately that it would hardly be possible. Of course, I've known for the last five years that I am—well, we'll say the cracked pitcher, that may last the longest; I will put it that way to please you; but may go with a touch. But it's one thing to know that one may die any day, and another to know that the day is not possibly, but most probably within hailing distance. I think I have never been much afraid of Death; but the sight of him quite close does purge one's vision. It makes realities clearer, and the things that don't matter dwindle away. It is good for any man to see in right proportion for once in a way. Don't you think so?"

"My dear Charles, if you are talking about your soul, and your sins, and all that kind of thing, no doubt a serious illness may make you feel their importance; though I can't say I think you needed it. But if you are talking about practical affairs, never trust to decisions made when you are out of health: illness does not make the vision clearer; it renders one liable to foolish weakness and error of judgment!"

"Spoken like a Solomon!" said Mr. Deane, laughing. He looked at her with a gleam of fun from the bed where he lay stretching out a hand to play with the silks on her lap. "I am sure, by the great vigour with which you delivered yourself of that maxim, that you are horribly afraid I have some 'foolish weakness' in view. Well—I've been thinking about my Meg."

Mrs. Russelthorpe sat more upright; her needle flew quicker still.

"She is not yours any more," she said, with a hard ring in her voice. "And it is an unprofitable subject for meditation. She concerns us no longer."

"So I have said," he answered; "but, after all, nothing in this world, or, I hope, in the next, can do away with the fact of fatherhood. It goes deeper than one's hurt pride. You see," in a low voice, "it is the eternal fact that one turns to oneself at the last. It is the root of all things."

His face flushed while he spoke, for he was not a man who talked often of his religious beliefs; his sister had never known him touch on them before.

"I wish you wouldn't excite yourself," she answered coldly, after a minute's silence. "To say nothing can do away with the parent's duty to his child is nonsense! God Himself doesn't claim to be the Father of the impenitent and disobedient—though I think it presumption to bring Him into a discussion. Are you weak enough to want to give the preacher's wife your blessing and forgiveness unasked? Probably that is what her husband reckoned on, that you would be very angry for a time, and then come round, and take it easily."

She was startled by the sudden passion in her brother's voice.

"Do you think I take it easily?" he said. "Don't you know that I would rather—yes, ten times rather have seen my child in her coffin, than have lost her so? No, no, I don't want to send for her; where would be the use? If she is happy, what have I to say? If she is unhappy—why, as we sow, so we must reap—both she and I, both father and child. She knows that too, I expect. My poor Meg! Ah well" (with a sudden change of tone), "Meg has made a mess of her life; but even you must allow, sis, that if it hadn't been for me, she wouldn't have had a life to make a mess of, eh? You can't get over that!"

"What are all these truisms leading up to?" inquired Mrs. Russelthorpe drily. She was immensely relieved to hear that he did not meditate sending for Meg; she felt she could breathe again. Mr. Deane leaned back on his pillows; his earnestness had tired him, and he was silent for a few minutes. Then:—

"No doubt I have been talking platitudes!" he said. "You mustn't expect an invalid to be strikingly original! I can't be brilliant in bed; and old truths impress one with new force when one lies face to face with—Oh yes, I said that before, didn't I? Well, when one is up and about, one is impressed by such a variety of things, and I have always detested business! Do you know that I've never made my will till now, though I've thought of it often enough! I sent for Mr. Sauls to witness it for me, and he is coming this evening. He has been staying at N——town. Our host has asked him to dine by-the-bye; I will finish the job this time!"

"Mr. Sauls! You might have spared me that!"

"Oh, you needn't see him. Say that I like your company, which is quite true, and have dinner up here with me. I wrote a line to him before you came, when—well, when I thought there wasn't much time to lose. If one doesn't strike when the iron is hot, the chances are that one doesn't strike at all!"

"I don't see that, Charles."

"No? It doesn't apply to you," with a smile. "I meant only myself and Meg. Well, sis, I don't want my will to be a shock to you, for you and I have always been friends, haven't we?"

Mrs. Russelthorpe's work fell on her knees; she turned to him with an expression which no one but her brother ever saw.

"I've liked you better than any one else always," she said deliberately.

"Poor old Joseph!" thought Mr. Deane; but aloud he said: "Yes, I know that; that's why I am telling you about my affairs. Sauls wants me to leave to her the same amount I shall leave to her sisters. You needn't exclaim! Sauls isn't a bad fellow, but I don't know why he should interfere. I've thought it all over. I have left Meg something—very little—and unconditionally."

"You are very kind to Barnabas Thorpe. He will benefit."

"Yes," said her brother gravely. "I have not tried to prevent it; he must benefit. I think Joseph made a mistake, though he meant kindly to my daughter, and I think Meg was right to refuse the money under such conditions. The preacher is her husband, her duty is to him now, and—well, both she and I have done rash things in plenty; but I hope that neither of us is mean enough to try to shirk the consequences. What I have left her will be something to fall back on if she is ill or in sudden need; not enough to lift her out of his sphere, out of the position she has chosen. I longed to make it more, but I have not done so. Laura and Kate will be all the richer; but I will not have Meg think that I have left off caring for her."

A wave of anger, hot and strong as ever, made his sister's hand shake for a moment; even now, she felt that Meg—unworthy, wicked as Meg had proved—stood between herself and her brother. Meg had always stood "between" from the time her baby hands had clung to him, and pushed Aunt Russelthorpe away, seventeen long years before.

"I have also left to her the things that were her mother's," he continued. "They are of no worth in themselves, and neither of the others would value them much. Laura and Kate are not sentimental, and you were not fond of their mother, sis. Meg will understand why I have left them to her. Poor little Meg! when I am dead she will understand."

Mrs. Russelthorpe rose abruptly. "I am glad you have not been so wickedly weak as to give her an equal share with her sisters, anyhow!" she remarked. "Mr. Sauls should be taught to mind his own business! As for caring for her still, that's culpable folly, I consider, and injustice too. What is the use of being good, if good and bad are to be loved alike? She ought to be punished, she ought to suffer."

"Ah!" said Mr. Deane. "No fear that she won't suffer enough! We fools who make mistakes always pay heavily, even when we make them from pure motives. Mistakes cost as dearly as crimes, I think; in this world anyhow! As for badness, who dares say what is sin, and what error? or divide the blame? I ought to come in for the largest share, I suppose, seeing that Meg inherited her failings from me! I shall stick to the 'culpable folly' of still loving my poor little daughter. It's a pity you don't like it. You never liked me to be fond of Meg."

"It's not that at all," said his sister angrily; "but, thank God, no amount of affection could ever blind me to the difference between right and wrong."

"I think, perhaps," said Mr. Deane, "that one day even you—and I own you are much more consistent and better than I am—may feel inclined rather to thank Him that He is more merciful than men—or women. Are you going?"

"You've talked more than enough, Charles."

"I've taken a most mean advantage of my position. What a shame! And you've had to put up with me because I am in bed. I won't do it any more. Shall you have your dinner up here?"

"No," said Mrs. Russelthorpe. "Why should I? That Mr. Sauls is underbred and self-assertive at times is no reason for my being driven out of the dining-room, or allowing myself to fail in courtesy to our host. Don't laugh like that, Charles! You are making yourself cough."

"I beg your pardon, sis," said he; "but I wish—oh, I wish!—I could be there to see the encounter! Sauls is a pretty stiff antagonist too! I wonder which would get the best of a tussle? I think you would; but I am not sure—really, I am not sure."

"There will be no 'tussle'. Mr. Sauls is too much a man of the world to show any awkwardness at meeting me," said she. And she did him justice, for George betrayed no embarrassment whatever; though the last rather unpleasant interview she had had with him about Mr. Russelthorpe's will was forgotten by neither of them. They dined at three at Lupcombe. In London, six o'clock dinners were the fashion; but fashions took longer in creeping into the country when they had to travel at eight miles an hour.

Mr. Bagshotte's guests were both good talkers. The pleasant tournament of wit, which was a trifle sharp-edged occasionally, went on briskly all dinner time, and the old gentleman believed them charmed to see each other. He got out his favourite Latin quotations,—it was George who gave him the opportunity; and he promised with great satisfaction to show Mr. Sauls the ancient brasses in the middle aisle.

Mrs. Russelthorpe secretly wondered what this very clever lawyer hoped to gain by playing up to the parson. But, to tell the truth, he expected to get nothing; he never grudged trouble where either his friends or his enemies were concerned.

The two men went into the quiet old church after the meal was over, where George examined all that was to be seen with great patience and minuteness. If he had only guessed! If he had had the faintest inkling of what was happening in the garden not much more than a stone's throw away, neither brasses nor parson would have held him long.

There seems an especially unkind irony about the fate that makes us lose a chance by only a stone's throw.

Mrs. Russelthorpe took no interest in brasses; she had a horror of "relics" of any kind. She left Mr. Bagshotte and Mr. Sauls to their own devices; and, her brother being asleep, planted her chair on the lawn with its back to the churchyard, so that she faced the front gate, which stood hospitably open to the village street.

She had had a hard time of it lately; and hard times often, perhaps in the majority of cases, have a hardening rather than a softening effect. Mrs. Russelthorpe always felt that Providence made an unjustifiable mistake when she was visited with affliction.

Her morning's talk with her brother had left an unpleasant impression on her mind, and she reflected impatiently on the way in which, when one wishes to get rid of a haunting thought, everything combines to recall it. The reflection was called forth by a pale thin woman in a black dress who came along the village street, who held her head like a Deane, like Meg in fact, and walked like her too. Somehow, at the first moment, it did not strike Mrs. Russelthorpe that it was Meg.

The woman turned in at the gate; stood still when she saw Mrs. Russelthorpe, lifted her head, looking straight at her, and: "I have come to see my father," she said. "Is he better or worse?"

Mrs. Russelthorpe rose to her feet, her face a little pale; the antagonism that had never died, and scarcely slept, alert as ever, and a passionate determination bracing her soul. This woman should not see Charles! What! after dragging his name in the dust, and after linking it with that of a preaching vagabond, after setting at defiance all decency and obedience, she would "go to her father"! And he, he would be weak enough to forgive her. Illness had unmanned him; though men were always weaker than women, especially where Meg was concerned.

"My brother is better," she said slowly. "You have lost the right to call him father. You cannot go to him. He will not see you."

Meg shook her head with a faint smile, and walked on up the path to the front door. Her old fear of 'Aunt Russelthorpe' was dead. She recognised with a momentary surprise that she had lived past all that.

Mrs. Russelthorpe made a quick step forward and caught her by the arm. She too knew instinctively that she could not coerce or overawe this sad-eyed woman, as she had often coerced the girl long ago; but she could still win the day, and she would.

"Margaret," she cried; "do you—do even you want to kill him?" And Margaret paused.

The two women looked in each other's eyes; both were unflinching and of set purpose, but Mrs. Russelthorpe had still the advantage, for she could "hit below the belt".

"It may actually and literally be his death warrant, if he should be awakened suddenly. He is sleeping now," she said. "I do not want to carry any message from you, Margaret. There need be no pretence of love between you and me. Yet I will go in and prepare him, if you choose. When he wakes, I will say to him whatever you wish me, and I will bring you his answer. Go now, if you like, and force your way in and startle him. The choice is between your own wilfulness and his safety. It rests with you."

She let go her hold on Meg's arm, on completing her sentence. She had gained her point.

"I will wait for you," said Meg. "I will sit here on the doorstep till he sends for me. Only promise that you will take my words as I give them; that you will add nothing, nor take away anything; that you will not try to persuade him not to see me. You swear it?"

She did not move her eyes from her aunt's face; and long after, Mrs. Russelthorpe could not close her own without seeing them. Ah, how Meg had altered!

"I will add nothing to your message, nor take away from it," she repeated.

"Then I promise too," said Meg. "If he says he will not see me I will go away—but he will." Her voice shook. "I know that my father will."

"Well," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; "I am waiting."

Meg covered her face with her hands. "Ah, it will sound differently when you say it," she cried. "Tell him I only beg to see him once more; that I do so long to! That I have thought of him. That I have wanted him often. That I know that he has not forgotten me. That, when I heard he was ill, I could not stay away—I could not! but it is only for a moment. I must ask him to forgive me. Then I will go back, because I have promised," said Meg with a sudden choke, "and because I am his daughter."

Mrs. Russelthorpe turned silently away; and Meg sat down on the doorstep and waited, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the grey church, where the parson and George Sauls were dawdling over inscriptions.

How long she waited she did not know; it might have been half an hour, it might have been five minutes; but she had no doubt as to the result of the message: she could never quite outlive her faith in her father.

She sprang to her feet on hearing a step behind her. "He is awake!" she cried. Her aunt looked away from her; past her into the garden.

"Yes," she said in a dry voice. "He is awake—but he will not see you."

Meg drew her breath quickly, as if she had been physically hurt. "He—he did not mean it," she said. "You have not understood—he did not mean that—he will not. Tell me the words he said."

"He said," said Mrs. Russelthorpe, "'Where would be the use? If she is happy, what have I to say? If she is unhappy—why, as we sow, we reap; both she and I, both father and child.' Those were his very words—and he was right."

Meg looked at her with a strange mournful smile. "Oh, yes, he was right. Tell father he was quite right." And she turned and went.

The parson and Mr. Sauls came back to the parsonage five minutes later. Mrs. Russelthorpe was still standing in the garden; and Mr. Sauls, whose short-sighted eyes saw rather more than most people's, noticed at once that she looked worn and tired.

"Is Mr. Deane worse?" he asked.

"Oh no; I believe he is still sleeping," she said; "I will go and see." And this time she really went.

Her brother was sitting upright, flushed and rather excited.

"Sis, has any one been here?" he asked, the moment that she entered the room. "No? Ah well, it was fancy then—but—but I thought I heard my little daughter call me." The flush faded away; he lay back again disappointed. The wish was father to the thought!

"Charles," she cried, with an eagerness that surprised him, "do let us go away from this place! You will never be yourself till you have left it behind. If we travel by very easy stages I really think we might leave to-morrow. It seems a sudden idea on my part," she went on hurriedly; "but, indeed, the house is not healthy; I am convinced of it. I have had violent headaches ever since I have been here, and you are aware that I am not in the least liable to such ailments. I do not remember ever having felt like this before, and I cannot sleep or eat properly. Then, too, we are putting our kind host to immense inconvenience. The position is intensely awkward for me, though I have refrained from saying so. As for the stories about the fever, they are simply shocking—half the village died of it. I am not nervous; but it is really horrible to find every person one meets in mourning for some near relative."

Mr. Deane looked at her in undisguised astonishment.

"Why, my dear, I've never in my life before seen you possessed of a whim," he cried. "If it were not you, sis, I should say that it was a feminine attack of 'nerves'." And, to his farther surprise, she actually accepted the suggestion.

"I suppose it is," she said. "There, I own it; your illness has shaken me. I feel as if I could not possibly bear this dismal house any longer. All the family who used to live here are gone, and are buried just outside the gates. It is too melancholy; I dream of funerals! Do go, do go! You will be well as soon as we get away. You shall have no trouble; I will arrange everything. I will explain to our host, only let us go! Dear Charles, do let us go to-morrow."

Her voice trembled with unwonted earnestness, and Charles was much amazed and rather touched; it was so utterly unlike her to show any weakness of this kind, to stoop to entreaties. She must, indeed, have been anxious about him, since anxiety had so unnerved her. He had always been sure, he said to himself, that, in spite of what some people said, his sister was very warm-hearted in reality.

"Well, I daresay it won't hurt me. We'll go, if you want it so much, sis," he replied gently. "That is the least I can do for you, after all you've done for me."

And go they did, in spite of the parson's protestations, and in spite of a soft rain that fell continuously as if to damp Mrs. Russelthorpe's ardour, by literally pouring cold water on it.

Mr. Sauls, when he looked in to inquire after Mr. Deane on the following morning, was amused at the sudden exodus.

"Odd that such a hard woman should be such a coward about illness!" he remarked. "She is horribly afraid of infection,—I've noticed that; and she is selfish to the core!"

"Mrs. Russelthorpe's decision is rather overpowering," said the parson drily. It was the nearest approach he allowed himself to an unfavourable comment on his late guest. "I am sorry Deane has gone. It is seldom I get any visitors here; though, by-the-bye, I had an odd one last night—or, rather, early this morning. Mr. Thorpe, the preacher's father, walked in about two o'clock and begged to see me. He came to inquire whether his daughter-in-law was here. The old man must have got some mad fancy in his head. I have heard he is queer at times. Well, I persuaded him that she had never been near us, and he drew himself up and said quite quietly: 'Oh, it's all right, sir; she's sleeping wi' some friends at N——. She told us, that, maybe, she'd do that; quite right o' her. I'm glad of it!' And off he went, with an apology for having troubled me. A gentlemanly old fellow too!"

"Why!" cried George, with a flash of conviction; "are you certain that she has not been here? Don't you know that Barnabas Thorpe's wife is Mr. Deane's daughter?"

The parson started. They were standing in the garden on the very spot where Meg had pleaded in vain.

"Yes, yes, I know; though it seems impossible!"

"It ought to have been. There I quite agree with you; but, to the elect, 'all things are possible,' you know," said George Sauls bitterly.

The parson was too intent on his own thoughts to notice the sneer. "No one was here yesterday; I should have heard of it if she had come. I was hardly out of the rectory grounds all day. Eh? What? What is it, Brown?"

The gardener had come up behind them and touched his hat, with the air of having something to say.

"I beg your pardon, sir; there was some one as come here yesterday, while you and the gentleman was in the church," he said. "I come back into the garden after fetching the key for you, and there was a young woman a-standing here, just where the gentleman is now. I noticed her particular, for she wasn't one from the village; and she seemed in great trouble, and she sort of stretched out her hands, broken-hearted like; and Mrs. Russelthorpe was sending her away, which seemed queer, seeing it ain't her house, and——"

"That will do," said the parson. "Mrs. Russelthorpe's affairs are no concern of yours, Brown; or mine," he added to George, as soon as the man had retired somewhat crestfallen.

"Perhaps Mr. Deane did not wish to see his daughter. God bless me! To think of his daughter! Deane doesn't look a hard man either. I wonder whether,—but it's not my business."

Mr. Sauls smiled, not very pleasantly. "You wonder whether Mr. Deane knew she had been sent away?" he said. "I don't wonder about it, sir; but I'll tell you one thing,—if he didn't, he shall know!"

CHAPTER VIII.

As for Meg, she turned her face towards the farm again, and of that journey back she never liked to think so long as she lived.

There are griefs we outlive, whose dead faces we can bear to look on, recognising that they are dead; but there are some hours of pain we can never look at overmuch, even through the merciful veil of many years, as there are some joys which we know will be ours always, so long as we are ourselves, those sharpest pains and joys which touch the eternal in us, and make us realise what is meant by the "doing away of time".

That her father would not see her, even if she entreated him, had been the one thing that had not seemed possible to the daughter who loved him.

During the long drive back to N——town, his message kept running in her head: "As we sow, so we must reap;—both she and I; both father and child".

It was burnt into her brain and into her heart. She saw it when she shut her eyes; she heard it when she stopped her ears.

"It is the hopeless law of all one's life," she thought. "And there is no going against it. Father does not even try to. He might have tried! No, no; it was not his fault. He was right."

And as she had attempted a hundred times before in her girlhood to justify him to herself when he might have stood up for his daughter and did not, so her tired brain tried to justify him now.

She would rather believe that she was too bad for forgiveness, than that he had not depth of affection enough to be forgiving.

She was terribly anxious about him too. Mrs. Russelthorpe had said that he was better; but then she had also declared that it might be his "death warrant" if he were suddenly awaked. Surely that did not sound as if he were out of danger. She went over the whole interview again, and had just got to the climax for the twentieth time, when the stopping of the carriage brought her with a jerk from the garden at Lupcombe to the busy street of N——town, and the entrance of the "Pig and Whistle".

"Have we arrived?" said Meg, getting out as if she were in a dream. "I thought we had just started!"

The landlord, who had bustled to the door at the sound of wheels, looked at her inquisitively. The preacher's wife, about whom there was a very romantic story, had always interested him. He had thought her a very gentle-mannered and sweet-voiced woman, and, for his part, rather admired her funny accent and "foreign" ways. He was full of wonder just now. It was only the gentry who ordered carriages in that way. The idea of Barnabas Thorpe's wife posting to Lupcombe! A fifteen-shilling drive! But he had seen the gold in her purse; she had evidently enough money to pay.

How very sad she looked! The distressed expression in her eyes touched him. "Come in, ma'am, and have a sup o' some'ut," he said good-naturedly. "The 'eat's been too much for you! I wouldn't ask a lady into the bar; an' I know as Barnabas Thorpe's wife won't touch good liquor; but, if you'll honour me by coming into the parlour, I'll bring you a cup of tea in a trice. You look fit to drop; and, if I might make so bold, just one atom of brandy in it would be neither here nor there, and would do you no harm at all. Now I won't take 'No,' ma'am, though your husband do try to damage my trade. Just you come in and sit a bit, while the horse is changed."

"Thank you," said Meg. "The sun is too hot I suppose, and the bustle makes one feel giddy."

The clock in the market-place struck seven while she was speaking; the sun's rays were certainly not overpowering now, whatever they had been; and a great bank of thunder-clouds was steadily rising in the east.

The landlord glanced from her to the sky, and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"You're like my wife, ma'am," he said. "She'd feel for you, only she's been in the cellar this last half-hour,—on account of the storm, I mean," he added hastily. "Thunder always upsets her. Come along this way, ma'am. You do look poorly!"

His visitor followed, still rather as if she were not quite certain where she was. Meg, indeed, never knew exactly how she got into that little back parlour; but the tea, which was guilty of more than a drop of brandy, revived her. Her father's message left off sounding in her ears, the garden at Lupcombe became less painfully distinct, and she suddenly remembered that she had fasted since she had started in the morning; and this, possibly, was why she felt faint.

Her host nodded approvingly when she ordered something to eat. Meg's head ached so that she could not calculate how much money she ought to have left; but she knew that there should be more than enough to pay for a meal.

She dived to the bottom of her pocket: her purse must be there; it had her husband's savings in it, as well as the price of her diamonds. She could not have done anything so dreadful as to lose his hard-won earnings! Besides, she had not paid her bill. She pulled out her handkerchief, and then the pocket itself, inside out. She was staring blankly at it when the landlord bustled back.

He guessed at once what had happened. The empty pocket suggested it. He was good-natured and consolatory, but overflowing with curiosity when he heard that she had had it last at the pawnbroker's.

Mrs. Thorpe at the Jew's over the way! What would the Thorpes have said, had they known? He wondered whether the poor young thing had got herself into some scrape, and heartily pitied her, if she had; but his money was safe anyhow; he knew the family well enough to be very sure of that. He could afford to take it easily.

"Come, come," he said, on her refusing to eat because she "hadn't a penny left to pay with," "I'm not so poor, thank goodness, that I can't afford to wait till next time Tom Thorpe drives his foals to market; and, if they'd wish you to starve, it's a crying shame, ma'am, and I'd not have thought it of them. I've never heard that the Thorpes weren't open-handed."

"They are all most generous," said Meg quickly, and she ate the slice of beef. Certainly, whatever her fears were, she did not imagine that any of her relatives-in-law would have grudged it to her. She could not let that imputation rest on them.

The food brought a tinge of colour to her face, and she regained her usual gentle dignity of manner. She would not allow this good gossip, who asked a great many questions, to fancy that she was terrified at going back. It would not be fair to Barnabas!

How miserable she really was it would be hard to say. The more she thought of it, the more her shrinking from what was before her grew.

She pictured Tom's repressed contempt, and Barnabas passionately angry, as when he had thrashed Timothy. She dreaded the way they would all ask about her father—whether she had found him, and why not; and then, with a horror of loneliness, she remembered that she could never even try to see him again now. "As she had sowed, so she must reap!" Ah, it was beginning again! Meg rose hastily.

"I promised that I would go back to-night," she said, "and I must go. I meant to drive; I had enough money of my own to pay for that—but I have lost it, and my husband's too, which is worse. He will have to pay a very long bill for me as it is." And Meg blushed painfully. "I don't want to run up any more debts. What would be the cheapest possible way of getting home—if I don't walk?"

"Walk!" said the landlord, "you don't look fit to walk a quarter of a mile, let alone fifteen! I'd provide you a trap very reasonable, ma'am, though it's late to be going all that way now—or—oh! here's Johnny Dale back; I sent him about the purse—well, have they got it?"

"Dun knaw nothin' 'bout it, theer," he answered, with a slow stare at Meg, who, on her part, was filled with a vague recollection of having seen this boy at the farm. "Granny's got round again. Will 'ee tell the preacher so?" he said suddenly, breaking into a broad grin. "And will 'ee tell Maister Tummas that I'm doin' well, and gettin' five shillings a quarter besides my keep, and granny's uncommon obligated to him for gettin' me th' place, and she's over here to-day marketing?"

"Ay, so she be; and that's how you can get back, ma'am," cried the landlord. "Why, Granny Dale 'ull have to pass within a mile of Caulderwell. She could put you down at the cross path, if you could run that bit in the dark. I'll be bound she'll do that much for your husband's sake, though that donkey of hers is precious slow; you won't be there afore eleven. Here, Johnny, where is that granny o' yours? In the bar, eh? She doan't hold with the preacher's principles 'cept when she's by way o' dying, the old sinner! But the donkey'll take you back safe. Shall I go and find her? Though I don't know," he added doubtfully; "Granny Dale's a queer sort of company for a lady like you."

And he went on his mission, the preacher's wife thanking him with the pretty gratitude that won his liking. He little guessed that, at the bottom of her heart, Mrs. Thorpe would have rejoiced to know that she, personally, would never get home again.

It was very late when the donkey cart at last started. Granny Dale was a most erratic old dame. She would not be hurried—"Not for twenty Mrs. Thorpes".

Her voice sounded suspiciously thick, and she smoked a short clay pipe. She was horribly dirty, and smelt of gin. Meg hardly noticed her, though at any other time she would have been disgusted.

The reins hung loose in the woman's gnarled hands, that were brown and knotted like the branches of one of the stunted trees of that country.

The donkey trotted on steadily with a responsible air. On he went through the street, where the passersby remarked on granny's companion, and where granny herself took the pipe from her lips to shout facetious observations in the broadest of dialect to her acquaintances. On into the open country again, where the view of the sky broadened, and one could see how the thunder-clouds were piled up, solid and threatening, like the battlements of a city—great purple masses, divided only in one place by a narrow red rift.

Granny pointed towards them with her whip. "Theer be a starm coomin' oop," she said. "Are yo' fleyed o' the thunder?"

Meg made no reply; she was thinking of many things past and to come. She was "fleyed"—but not of the thunder.

"An' if yo' wur th' queen hersel', yo' moight fash yersel' to answer when yo're spoke to!" cried granny with a sudden burst of fury. "Eh, I know what they all says, that ye be quality born, an' ran awa' wi' Barnabas Thorpe!—an gradely fule he wur that day!—and that yo've pined ever since. An', if yo' wur all th' quality o' th' land, theer's no call to be so high as not to hear a body as talks to 'ee—wastin' my good words, treatin' me loike th' dirt under yo' feet, who am nothin' o' th' soart! 'specially"—indignantly—"when yo're ridin' i' my donkey cart!"

"I am very sorry," said Meg, effectually roused this time. "I didn't know you were speaking to me; I was thinking of something else. Indeed,"—seeing that the excuse was likely to provoke a fresh storm,—"I didn't mean to be 'high' in the least; but,"—seizing on the point in her misfortunes most likely to appeal to granny's sympathies—"I lost my purse in the town, and it had money of my husband's in it."

"Eh!" said granny, twisting round in her seat and taking the pipe out of her mouth. "Theer's a pretty business! That do gi'e 'ee some'ut to think abeawt surely. My man 'ud ha' beaten me black and blue if I'd ha' done that; he wur free wi' his blows, Jacob wur, 'specially in his cups; but the preacher's noan o' that soart."

"No," said Meg; "he is not that sort." In a lighter mood she would have smiled at the statement. She was not afraid of physical violence. Even in her wildest terrors (and Meg's imagination was apt to become unreasonable in proportion to the overstrain on her bodily powers) she knew that that would be as impossible to Barnabas as to her own father.

Yet granny's suggestion, like Long John's story of "Maister Tummas," presented the more brutal side of life to her, and depressed her yet further. She shrank with increasing nervousness from the thought of that alien element of roughness at the farm.

She was fearfully tired; and, in the reaction from the excitement of the morning, could fight no longer against a melancholy that swept over her, as the clouds steadily rising from the east swept over the sky.

She saw the rest of her life in as unnatural and lurid a light as that which now lay in a streak across the marshes, and in which the polished stalks of the marsh grass shone red.

"There is such a glare under the clouds! how it makes one's eyes ache!" she said; and then she became aware that her charioteer was giving her a great deal of highly seasoned advice on her behaviour to her husband.

Granny hated all ladies. She hated them even in their natural place. She had an old and standing grudge against them. But when they chose to descend from their unassailable platform—when they were silly enough to force themselves into the grade of honest workers—then they ought to be made to mend their ways, and eat humble pie in large mouthfuls—not to keep up their old airs and insult their betters.

"Oh, I know," said Meg, speaking more to herself than to granny; "but I can't help being different from the others; I have tried, but it is of no use. There are things one can do, and things one can't do; the thing I have tried I can't!"

And granny had no more idea what hopelessness lay in that confession than if Meg had spoken in a foreign language. It even irritated her the more, as a fresh avowal of a claim to the "fine-ladyism" which to her was like a red rag to a bull.

"Can't help!" she cried. "An' let me tell 'ee this, young woman, if I wur your husband I'd mak' yo' help it. Ah, an' he wull one day. You think the preacher's made of naught but butter; but yo'll find out theer's more nor that in him. It's all fine for a while. Oh yes, I've he'rd o' yo're stand-off ways wi' him; but a mon 'ull ha' some satisfaction from the woman he feeds and clothes. I suppose you've not thought o' that? Ye fancy becos ye are young, and ha' got eyes that look as if they saw through stone walls, that ye can do as ye like wi' a mon! An' so 'ee con, so 'ee con for a bit; but it's only fur a bit wi' ony of 'em, it don't last. Eh, I knaw. I con tell thee, I wur a greater beauty than ever yo' wur, my lass; and Jacob wur as big a fule over me afore he married as ever yo' see'd; an', afore that I'd been his'n a month, he kicked me so that——"

"I don't want to hear, please!" said Meg; but granny laughed scornfully, and proceeded with the recital. Whether because she took a fierce pleasure in shocking her companion's sensibilities, or because she thought it would be good for the lady to realise what she might have had to suffer if Barnabas hadn't been "softer nor some," she spared no details.

"It wur no marvel Timothy wur born quare," said granny; "he wur cliverer than most to live at all, poor lad; tho' ye do look down on 'im." And there was a kind of fierce affection in that last speech; a defiant love for the lad she had born in the midst of sore mis-usage, that woke Meg's pity more than the horrible stories of gross cruelty that had been poured into her unwilling ears.

"But all men are not like that, granny," she said at last.

"Naw; some be too fur th' other way abeaut," said granny. "Barnabas Thorpe 'ud ha' brought yo' to knaw yo're place by now, ef he'd made ye feel him maister; but he won't stand yo' for ever, an' so I tell 'ee; and he'll be i' th' right too. Yo' con go on talking i' that quare mincing way, as a body can't understan'; yo' con go on lookin' as if ye weren't made o' th' same stuff as us (just because ye've been fed and pampered all yo're life), and pretending not to hear what's said to 'ee, and holdin' him off wi' yo're airs; but he'll be sick o' that one day, and where 'ull yo're foine ladyship be then?"

"I don't know," said Meg apathetically. "Perhaps I shall have learned not to feel any more. People can't go on caring about things always, I suppose. One will grow old some day, mercifully."

And she looked at the witch-like old hag beside her, who had been the country beauty once, and whose husband had kicked her when he was tired of her (within a month), and who had found consolation in smoking and drinking. "Or perhaps I may die," she said; "which would be much better!"

A flash of lightning almost blinded her, even while she spoke, and the quickly following crash of thunder drowned her last words.

Granny leaned forward, shifting the whip in her hand, and struck the donkey with the butt end.

"We'll just get to th' miser's hut i' time," she said; "but I'll put ye out o' the cart if ye talk o' death in a thunder-starm; it's temptin' the Lard."

It was quite dark now, except when the lightning opened the sky, and momentarily lighted up the stretch of marsh land. The donkey's pace quickened, and Meg held on to the side of the cart, while they jolted rapidly over the uneven track. What a tiny speck they seemed under that vast canopy of cloud!

Every other living thing was in hiding, except a gull, flying inland, and very close to the ground.

Meg heard its harsh cry, and saw, with a thrill of envy, the gleam of the white wings as it swept past.

"'Oh that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away and be at rest.'" But there was no flying away for her, no escaping the slow reaping that would follow the hasty sowing, so surely as the thunder followed the flash. Ah, there it was again, running along the ground like a fiery serpent; and the thunder, this time, seemed to burst close to their ears, and fill the whole air, and shake the earth.

They were at the deserted hut now; and Granny Dale got down and took the trembling beast out of the shafts, and led him in.

She had much more sympathy with her donkey than with Meg, who further tried her temper by standing at the entrance to the hut watching.

The old woman crouched down on the mud floor by the fireplace, rocking to and fro, muttering something that was meant for a prayer, and casting malevolent glances at the figure in the doorway. The donkey rubbed his head on her shoulder; he too was "fleyed o' the starm," which increased in fury every minute.

"Look 'ee here," she cried at last, "I'll ha' no more o' this. It ain't fittin' to gape at the Lard's judgments, as if they wur a show, and it 'ull bring Him down on us. I won't be struck cos o' yo', and yo'r uncanny ways. Come in, like a Christian, an' say yo'r prayers, and hide yo'r eyes; or else be gwon wi' you; an' a good riddance!"

The lightning lighted up Meg's pale face as she turned round; the sadness of her expression struck granny afresh. "Theer be some'ut unlucky about 'ee," she cried. "I'm wishful I'd not brought ye; I doubt ye'll not bring much good to any one. Timothy said as much. Eh, an' what are ye after now?"

"I know my way from here," said Meg. "I am not afraid of the storm. I won't stay and bring you bad luck, Mrs. Dale." And she slipped out into the darkness.

The old woman rose with difficulty and hobbled to the door, which Meg had shut gently behind her. The wind was rising now, and blew against it with a shrieking gust. Mrs. Dale battled with it for a minute, then succeeded in opening it, and looked about. At that moment the heavy clouds broke, and down came the rain!—dashing down, whistling through the air, like a solid sheet of water, leaping up again on its fall.

Blessed rain, that had been needed all these hot weeks; that the farmers would rejoice to hear while they lay in their beds; that the earth would greet, with a sweetness which would rise like incense! The earth spurted up, the willows bent under the onslaught of water. It frightened the birds in their nests, and made all small animals cower and peep in their shelters. It was not a night in which any living being should be out in the open.

Granny Dale shut the door again, and relighted her pipe; the danger was over, so there was no further need to pray. She puffed away philosophically instead: it was lucky she had brought plenty of "'baccy" with her. The rain was too violent to last. When it should stop, she and the donkey would jog on again. As for that crazy woman, who couldn't speak her own mother tongue properly, she must be getting pretty drenched; but she was the preacher's affair, not Granny Dale's. No; she was nowhere to be seen; she had vanished like a ghost, or a storm spirit,—why bother about her?

Granny swore once or twice; she could not help being bothered; and, when the storm cleared at last, and she and her donkey started, splashing through ooze and slush, making deep ruts in their progress, she peered anxiously to the right and left, seeing Meg in stunted alder trees, and in clumps of pale reeds, and, even once, in the reflection of the moon in a pool. It looked to her like the girl's white face, upturned and floating.

Meg was not on the high road at all; she had turned sharp to the left from the hut, and struck into a short cut to the farm. She fancied she knew her way across these familiar marshes, even in the dark.

Indeed, she kept on quite steadily at first, only stooping now and then to make sure with her hands that her feet were still on the track, or to shut her eyes, that were nearly blinded by the lightning. How small she felt among the immense resistless powers that were at play round her!—One tiny atom in the midst of the great plan of nature that whirls on through the ages, taking no count of the individual births, and deaths, and pains and joys! She kept on quite steadily till the sluice gates opened and the water descended with a force that made her stagger, taking her breath away, pelting her, drenching her through and through in a minute. Meg was swept half round by it, driven backwards a few steps in her surprise up against a tree, to which she clung instinctively. Both her arms were round the trunk, and she felt it sway and creak. Already her feet were in a puddle, nearly ankle-deep.

"If this goes on much longer, it will be a second deluge," thought she. "Were any of the people who were drowned in the Flood rather glad to be swept away, I wonder?"

But it did not last. The storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun. The birds lifted their heads again, and began to chirp a feeble sleepy thanksgiving. The worst was over. Meg loosened her hold of the willow, and wandered on.

She was as soaked as if she had fallen into the stream; her clothes were very heavy, and her steps were more uncertain than they had been. The track was lost in water; everywhere there seemed nothing but shallow glistening pools, which reflected the deep dark sky and the stars, when the clouds parted and rolled off.

Presently Meg found herself on the verge of a salt-water spring that was deeper than the others. She discovered that she was going the wrong way when she got to the "Pixie's Pool". She had all but walked into it, but had been stopped by the black post with a supposed depth, marked in rough white figures, put up by one of the Thorpes.

Meg leaned against the post to rest, and looked down into the black depths; and, thus looking, a temptation seemed to rise from them, and lay hold of her soul and body.

She had so nearly fallen in! Suppose she let herself drop; a step would do it, and no one would ever know that it had not been an accident!

Barnabas would be unhappy—for a time; but his work was his real love, and he never looked on death as a misfortune, and it would set him free. Tom would be rather sorry, Mr. Thorpe more than "rather"; but, after all, she had always been a strange element at the farm,—never quite one of them, even when they were kindest. They would go on as before she came; there would hardly be a place to fill up; she had never been much good to any one! She slipped on to her knees and stooped lower over the water. It seemed drawing her, with a force that was part of the pitiless power that she had felt in the storm; that she had felt too in her own life. "As we sow, so we must reap;" "must reap," it was running in her head again,—but she could escape the "must" so, and so only.

Terrible relentless law, that she felt she could bow to no more. Should she break through it once and for ever, so that the reaping should be no more for her,—in this world, at any rate?

She could see the moon in the water; she could fancy herself falling through it, disturbing the reflection for a moment, then it would close over her again; it would look just as though she had never been; it would be just the same. One life less; it counted for nothing among the thousands; and the sky and marsh and water would keep the secret, and she would have to make no more efforts. She was tired, oh so tired! Ah, how the water was pulling her—it was like a magnet to a needle!

She had failed utterly. Life was a perplexity and a terror; and God was too far away—if, indeed, He "was" at all. Scepticism was unnatural to Meg; it meant blank despair to her. The horrors "granny" had poured into her ears, mingled with her own sense of impotence and failure, made her feel it better to risk anything, to force a verdict of damnation from an angry God, rather than to stay where He was not, where the heartless horror of mechanical laws reigned supreme.

Natural healthy love of life was never so strong as it should be in her: she would always rather fly to the ills she knew not, than bear the evils she knew, and face misery she could picture to herself. Her courage had given way. She shut her eyes and swayed towards the pool. One plunge and it would be done!

"Margaret, Margaret!" the shout, loud and insistent, rang across the marshes and broke the spell. "Margaret!" farther off and fainter. "Margaret, Margaret!" once more, quite away in the distance.

It was the preacher's voice. He must be looking for her. Meg had sprung to her feet at the first call. A choking sensation rose to her throat, and tears to her eyes. Had he been searching for her all night? He did not break his bargain, nor fling aside his responsibilities, whatever she did; and she had promised him she would go back. What a coward she was! What a mad, dishonourable coward! With a burning sense of shame, Meg turned her back on the death that had tempted her sorely, with a yearning, that was deeper than articulate prayer, to the God who alone knows how hard life is.

"One must pay one's debts and keep one's promises. I'll go on again and finish it," she said. She spoke to the invisible, and did not know she had spoken aloud. Then she began to stumble in the direction of the farm.

It was fresher and cooler after the rain; but her feet sank into the softened ground, making puddles where they trod, and her wet clothes clung to her.

She would have run if she could, but that was impossible; and she was beginning to have a vague impression that she had been several weeks, at least, struggling over these moonlit boggy tracks. The path was swamped; but by some wonderful chance she did find herself at last in the straight cart road to the farm.

The house stood before her, visible at the end of the road, silhouetted black and solid against the sky. It was at night that she had seen it first.

Then with that recollection came back the wonder as to what they would all say. How long had she been gone? Her senses were so confused that she could not think connectedly, much less find words in which to explain.

She reached the house and leaned against the rough grey stone, conscious the while that her limbs would not have carried her any further. The door was shut, but the light streamed from the windows. Who was up so late? She could hear voices inside. Some one was saying:—

"Gi'e me the lantern; I'll start again." But she heard as if in a dream. Approaching steps sounded behind the door, but she had not knocked. It was opened. The light flashed in her eyes.

"Eh, who is it? my lass!" said Barnabas. She felt his hand on her arm for a moment, and then he put down the lantern, lifted her up as if she were a child, and carried her right in. She was in Mr. Thorpe's wooden chair by the fire, and Barnabas was kneeling beside her; she looked at him with a vague wonder at seeing him so moved.

"Barnabas, is it morning?" she said quickly. "I meant—I did try—to keep my promise to come back the same day—I couldn't help it. Everything tried to prevent me, but I started meaning to come back; only the storm came on, and father wouldn't see me, and there seemed no end to the 'reaping,' and I was so tired; but father was quite right, you know—and you were right too; only—oh! that isn't what I wanted to say; I can't—I can't remember the right words!"

"Never mind," said Barnabas; and he drew her head on to his shoulder. "Don't talk, little lass. Ye can tell me to-morrow. Bring me that soup, Cousin Tremnell. Take a pan o' coals and warm her bed. Eh, ye are soaked!"

He was feeding her as if she were a baby; and Meg was so utterly exhausted that she let him do as he liked, with a sense of relief at not being expected even to lift her hand to her lips.

But the soup revived her, and after a minute she sat upright and looked round her.

"An' where have ye been?" said Tom. He was dripping too, and had another lantern in his hand. He was more relieved than he cared to express to see Barnabas' wife safe.

"A pretty dance ye ha' led us," he cried. "An' what were ye doin'?" But the preacher saw the scared look come back to Meg's eyes, and interposed.

"Never mind," he said again. "It doesna matter! There is only one thing that matters,—that ye've come home to me; ye've come home to me! Why, ye can hardly stand, lass!" seeing Meg make the attempt.

"I have been running miles, I think, and my knees are shaking so," she explained. And Barnabas lifted her in his arms again, and carried her up.

"Good-night!" said Tom good-naturedly, "or good-morning, which is it? Next time ye go in for these high jinks, Barnabas' wife, do 'ee choose a finer night! Oh well," stretching himself, "dad needn't ha' been afear'd lest Barnabas should be too rough on her!"