e, in spite of his marriage, it
was impossible not to see; and she strove to think him very wicked for
it, and her cheek was red with a feeling that seemed akin to shame.
But--trouble?--thankful for her sake, night and day, that her name was
not linked with his? He must allude to debt, she supposed: some of those
old embarrassments had augmented themselves into burdens too heavy to be
safely borne.

The Rector was coming on now at a swift pace. He looked keenly at Lord
Hartledon; looked twice, as if in surprise. A flush rose to Val's
sensitive face as he passed, and lifted his hat. The Rector, dark and
proud, condescended to return the courtesy: and the meeting was over.

Toiling across Lord Hartledon's path was the labourer to whom the Rector
had been speaking. He had an empty bottle slung over his shoulder, and
carried a sickle. The man's day's work was over, and had left fatigue
behind it.

"Good-night to your lordship!"

"Is it you, Ripper?"

He was the father of the young gentleman in the cart, whom Mr. Pike had
not long before treated to his opinion: young David Ripper, the miller's
boy. Old Ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to
enter on his grievances. His wife had been pledging things to pay for
a fine gown she had bought; his two girls were down with measles; his
son, young Rip, plagued his life out.

"How does he plague your life out?" asked Lord Hartledon, when he had
listened patiently.

"Saying he'll go off and enlist for a soldier, my lord; he's saying it
always: and means it too, only he's over-young for't."

"Over-young for it; I should think so. Why, he's not much more than a
child. Our sergeants don't enlist little boys."

"Sometimes he says he'll drown himself by way of a change," returned old
Ripper.

"Oh, does he? Folk who say it never do it. I should whip it out of him."

"He's never been the same since the lord's death that time. He's always
frightened: gets fancying things, and saying sometimes he sees his
shadder."

"Whose shadow?"

"His'n: the late lord's."

"Why does he fancy that?" came the question, after a perceptible pause.

Old Ripper shook his head. It was beyond his ken, he said. "There be only
two things he's afeared of in life," continued the man, who, though
generally called old Ripper, was not above five-and-thirty. "The one's
that wild man Pike; t'other's the shadder. He'd run ten mile sooner than
see either."

"Does Pike annoy the boy