on, everything that was hateful. Even to
Fayette's dull brain there penetrated some realization of what his
present deed implied. For this was he who had waylaid an "enemy" on the
highroad and beaten him into unconsciousness.

Then he remembered his own wrongs, and his anger flamed afresh.

"Thought you could do all the lickin', did ye? How many times did _you_
have _me_ thrashed? What did you care if the man who thrashed me 'bout
killed me? What was I, only 'Bony,' out o' the poor farm! Ugh, you old
rascal! Take that, and that, and that. Huckleberries! but it's fun to
settle such scores."

The old horse which Mr. Wingate drove stood quiet in the road, else the
matter might have had a different ending; for had she run and dragged
her now helpless master, he would surely have been killed. As it was,
she did not move, so there was nothing to deaden the sound of the sharp
blows Fayette administered; and in the silence of the place and night
this sound carried far.

It reached the ears of a foot passenger, toiling up the mill road toward
Fairacres and quickened his pace. So that when the half-wit finally
paused for breath, he felt himself caught by his collar and heard a
stern voice demanding:--

"What's this? Hold! Stop! This--_here_, in _Ardsley_?"

Fayette looked up. The man who had gripped him was much taller than he,
and seemed in that dim light a giant for strength. The capture brought
back all those visions of punishment and the prison. In a twinkling the
agile lad had writhed himself free from his short coat and leaped away
into the darkness.

The newcomer heard a sound of retreating footsteps and mocking laughter,
then turned his attention to the injured man in the phaeton.

"An old fellow, too, he seems. Hello! Are you alive? Hey! Can't you
speak? That's serious."

The stranger's actions were alert and decided. He gently raised the bent
figure of the unconscious Mr. Wingate to as comfortable a position as he
could, stepped into the vehicle, and took up the reins.

"If nothing is changed, the nearest house is old Fairacres. But I didn't
look for such a home-coming. Get up there, nag!"

Not since the days of her youth had the sorrel mare been forced into
such a pace as then. The rescuer drove for life and death, and as if all
turnings of the old road were familiar to him. Nor did he slacken rein
until he reached the front door of the mansion, and sung out in a voice
to wake great echoes:--

"Hello, th