pain and
amazement; "mine's all bare end. It's nothing but 'bare end' for some
of us. Yesterday morning was wet and cold--you know how cold it was.
Well, Rotha had hardly gone out when a tap came to the door, and what
do you think it was? A woman, a woman thin and blear-eyed. Some one
must have counted her face bonnie once. She was scarce older than my
own lass, but she'd a poor weak barn at her breast and a wee lad that
trudged at her side. She was wet and cold, and asked for rest and
shelter for herself and the children-rest and shelter," repeated the
tailor in a lower tone, as though muttering to himself,--"rest and
shelter, and from me."

"Well?" inquired Ralph, not noticing Sim's self-reference.

"Well?" echoed Sim, as though Ralph should have divined the sequel.

"Had the poor creature been turned out of her home?"

"That and worse," said the little tailor, his frame quivering with
emotion. "Do you know the king's come by his own again?" Sim was
speaking in an accent of the bitterest mockery.

"Worse luck," said Ralph; "but what of that?"

"Why," said Sim, almost screaming, "that every man in the land who
fought for the Commonwealth eight years ago is like to be shot as a
traitor. Didn't you know that, my lad?" And the little man put his
hands with a feverish clutch on Ralph's shoulders, and looked into his
face.

For an instant there was a tremor on the young dalesman's features,
but it lasted only long enough for Sim to recognize it, and then the
old firmness returned.

"But what of the poor woman and her barns?" Ralph said, quietly.

"Her husband, an old Roundhead, had fled from a warrant for his
arrest. She had been cast homeless into the road, she and all her
household; her aged mother had died of exposure the first bitter
night, and now for two long weeks she had walked on and on--on and
on--her children with her--on and on--living Heaven knows how!"

A light now seemed to Ralph to be cast on the great change in his
friend; but was it indeed fear for his (Ralph's) well-being that had
goaded poor Sim to a despair so near allied to madness?

"What about Wilson?" he asked, after a pause.

The tailor started at the name.

"I don't know--I don't know at all," he answered, as though eager to
assert the truth of a statement never called into dispute.

"Does he intend to come back to Fornside to-night, Sim?"

"So he said."

"What, think you, is his work at Gaskarth?"

"I don't know--I know noth