g groan into a
chair, with his head in his hands. There was a general scream from the
women. One, more serviceable than the rest, called from the window to a
gaping yokel below in the yard, and bade him ride for help. Her face and
voice froze him for a moment, but he caught the words 'Miss Julia,' and
two minutes after he was astride a broad-backed plough-horse, making for
the distant village.

Samson Mountain sat with his face hidden and spoke no word; at the sight
of him his wife's face had turned to sudden rage, and she stood over
him like a ruffled hen, and clacked commination of masculine imbecility,
intermixed with wild plaints for her child.

Julia slept through the tumult as she had slept through the calm, and
Mrs. Jenny, kneeling beside her with her face in the bedclothes, moaned
love and penitent despair. Samson raised his head at last, and looked
with a dazed stare first at his daughter and then at his wife, and left
the room without a word, pursued by a hailstorm of reproach. He went
into the yard and pottered aimlessly about, looking old and broken on
a sudden. The sound of horses' hoofs roused him; it was the rustic
messenger returning. 'Where's the doctor?' demanded Samson. 'Gone to
Heydon Hey. What am I to dew?' 'Follow him an' fetch him back. Hast not
gumption enough to know that?' asked Samson wearily. The man started
again, and Samson began once more his purposeless wanderings about the
yard. He had no sense of time or place, only a leaden weight on heart
and limb, which in all his life he had never known before. He leaned his
elbows on the fence of the fold yard, and became conscious of a running
figure which neared him rapidly. He watched it stupidly, and it was
within twenty yards of him before he recognised it--Dick Reddy, dust and
mud to the collar, hatless, and panting.

'Julia!' he gasped. 'Tell me, is it true?' 'Julia's dyin,' said Samson.
'My God!' he cried, with sudden passion, as if his own voice had
unlocked the sealed fountain of his grief, 'my little gell's a-dyin'!'

'Mr. Mountain,' said Dick, 'I love her, you know I love her. Let me see
her.' His voice, broken with fatigue and emotion, his streaming eyes,
his outstretched hands, all pleaded with his words.

'It's all one who sees her now,' said Samson, and leaned his elbows on
the fence again. Dick took the despairing speech for a permission,
and entered the house. At the bottom of the stairs, in the otherwise
deserted hall, he me