me to waste my life by remaining single, with nothing to do but to look after you children. And it is shameful of you to speak in that way of Mr. Mulready.'
Ned stopped to hear no more. At her first words he had given a low gasping cry, as one who has received a terrible wound. The blood flew to his head, the room swam round, and he seemed to feel the veins in his temples swell almost to bursting. The subsequent words of his mother fell unheeded on his ears, and turning round he went slowly to the door, groping his way as one half-asleep or stupefied by a blow. Mechanically he opened the door and went out into the street; his cap was still on his head, but he neither thought of it one way or the other.
Almost without knowing it he turned from the town and walked towards the hills. Had anyone met him by the way they would assuredly have thought that the boy had been drinking, so strangely and unevenly did he walk. His face was flushed almost purple, his eyes were bloodshot; he swayed to and fro as he walked, sometimes pausing altogether, sometimes hurrying along for a few steps. Passing a field where the gate stood open he turned into it, kept on his way for some twenty yards further, and then fell at full length on the grass. There
he lay unconscious for some hours, and it was not until the evening dews were falling heavily that he sat up and looked round.
For some time he neither knew where he was nor what had brought him there. At last the remembrance of what had passed flashed across him, and with a cry of 'Father! father!' he threw himself at full length again with his head on his arm; but this time tears came to his relief, and for a long time he cried with a bitterness of grief even greater than that which he had suffered at his father's death. The stars were shining brightly when he rose to his feet, his clothes were soaked with dew, and he trembled with cold and weakness.
'What am I to do?' he said to himself; ' what am I to do?' He made his way back to the gate and leaned against it for some time; then, having at last made up his mind, he turned his back on the town and walked towards Varley, moving more slowly and weariedly than if he was at the end of a long and fatiguing day's walk. Slowly he climbed the hill and made his way through the village till he reached the Swintons' cottage. He tapped at the door with his hand, and lifting the latch he opened the door a few inches.
'Bill, are you in?' There was an exclamation of surprise.
' Why, sure-ly, it's Maister Ned !' and Bill came to the door.
' Come out, Bill, I want to speak to you.'
Much surprised at the low and subdued tone in which
( 281) K
Ned spoke, Bill snatched down his cap from the peg by the door and joined him outside.
'What be't, Maister Ned ? what be t' matter with thee? Has owt gone wrong ?'
Ned walked on without speaking. In his yearning for sympathy, in his intense desire to impart the miserable news to some one who would feel for him, he had come to his friend Bill. He had thought first of going to Mr. Porson. But though his master would sympathize with him he would not be able to feel as he did; he would no doubt be shocked at hearing that his mother was so soon going to marry again, but he would not be able to understand the special dislike to Mr. Mulready, still less likely to encourage his passionate resentment. Bill would, he knew, do both, for it was from him he had learned how hated the mill-owner was among his people. But at present he could not speak. He gave a short wave of his hand to show that he heard, but could not answer yet, and with his head bent down made his way out through the end of the village on to the moor—Bill following him, wondering and sympathetic, unable to conjecture what had happened. Presently, when they had left the houses far behind them, Ned stopped.
'What be't, Maister Ned?' Bill again asked, laying his strong hand upon Ned's shoulder; 'tell oi what it be. Hast got in another row with t' maister? If there be owt as oi can do, thou knowest well as Bill Swinton be with thee heart and soul.'
' I know, Bill—I know,' Ned said in a broken voice,
'but you can do nothing; I can do nothing; no one can. But it's dreadful to think of. It's worse than if I had killed twenty masters. Only think—only think, Bill, my mother's going to marry Mulready!'
' Thou doesn't say so, lad ! What! thy mother marry Foxey! Oi never heer'd o' such a thing. Well, that be bad news, surely! Well, well, only to think, now! Poor lad! Well, that beats all!'
The calamity appeared so great to Bill that for some time no idea occurred to him which could, under the circumstances, be considered as consolatory. But Ned felt the sympathy conveyed in the strong grasp of his shoulder, and in the muttered 'Well, well, now!' to which Bill gave vent at intervals.
'What bee'st going to do vor to stop it?' he asked at last.
'What can I do, Bill? She won't listen to me—she never does. Anything I say always makes her go the other way. She wouldn't believe anything I said against him. It would only make her stick to him all the more.'
'Do'st think,' Bill suggested after another long pause, 'that if we got up a sort of depitation—Luke Marner and four or five other steady chaps as knows him; yes, and Polly Powlett, she could do the talking—to go to her and tell her what a thundering bad un he is—dost think it would do any good?'
Even in his bitter grief Ned could hardly help smiling at the thought of such a deputation waiting upon his mother.
' No, it wouldn't do, Bill.'
Bill was silent again for some time.
'Dost want un killed, Maister Ned?' he said in a low voice at last; ''cause if ye do oi would do it for ye. Oi would lay down my life for ye willing, as thou knowest; and hanging ain't much, arter all. They say 'tis soon over. Anyhow oi would chance it, and perhaps they wouldn't find me out.'
Ned grasped his friend's hand.
'I could kill him myself!' he exclaimed passionately. 'I have been thinking of it; but what would be the good? I know what my mother is—when once she has made up her mind there's no turning her; and if this fellow were out of the way, likely enough she would take up with another in no time.'
' But it couldn't been as bad as if it wur Foxey,' Bill urged, ' he be the very wovsest lot about Marsden.'
'I would do it,' Ned said passionately; 'I would do it over and over again, but for the disgrace it would bring on Charlie and Lucy.'
'But there would be no disgrace if oi was to do it, Maister Ned.'
'Yes, there would, Bill—a worse disgrace than if I did it myself. It would be a nice thing to let you get hanged for my affairs; but let him look out—let him try to ill-treat Charlie and Lucy, and he will see if I don't get even with him. I am not so much afraid of that—it's the shame of the thing. Only to think that all Marsden should know my mother is going to be married again
within a year of my father's death, and that after being his wife she was going to take such a man as this! It's awful, downright awful, Bill!'
' Then what art thou going to do, Maister Ned—run away and 'list for a soldier, or go to sea ?'
' I wish I could,' Ned exclaimed. ' I would turn my back on Marsden and never come back again, were it not for the little ones. Besides,' he added after a pause, 'father's last words were, 'Be kind to mother;' and she will want it more than he ever dreamt of.'
'She will that,' Bill agreed; 'leastways unless oi be mistaken. And what be'st going to do now, lad? Be'st agoing whoam?'
' No, I won't go home to-night,' Ned replied. 'I must think it over quietly, and it would be worse to bear there than anywhere else. No, I shall just walk about.'
' Thou canst not walk abowt all night, Maister Ned,' Bill said positively; 'it bain't to be thowt of. If thou don't mind thou canst have moi bed and oi can sleep on t' floor.'
' No, I couldn't do that,' Ned said, ' though I do feel awfully tired and done up; but your brothers would be asking me questions and wondering why I didn't go home. I could not stand that.'
'No, Maister Ned, oi can see that wouldn't do; but if we walk about for an hour or two, or—no, I know of a better plan. We can get in at t' window of the school; it bain't never fastened, and bain't been for years, seeing as thar bain't been neither school nor schoolers since auld
Mother Brown died. Oi will make a shift to loight a fire there. There be shutters, so no one will see the loight. Then oi will bring ee up some blankets from our house, and if there bain't enough Polly will lend me some when oi tell her who they are for. She bain't a one to blab. What dost thou say?'
Ned, who felt utterly worn out, assented gladly to the proposal, and an entrance was easily effected into the desolate cottage formerly used as a day-school. Bill went off at once and soon returned with a load of firewood; the
