to
help him. I mean now to drop him altogether, and I must tell him so. But
what a pity it is! He is intelligent, and was a good carpenter until he
began to drink. I must talk to him."

"You will only make him more revengeful. He has what he calls 'got even'
with Josiah, and he is capable of doing it with you or me. Let him
alone."

"Not I," said the Squire; "if only for his mother's sake, I must see what
I can do."

"Useless--quite useless," said Rivers. "You may think that strange advice
for a clergyman, but I do sometimes despair of others and occasionally of
Mark Rivers. Goodnight."

During these days the fugitive floated down the swift little river at
night, and at dawn hid his frail boat and himself in the forests of a
thinly settled land. He was brave enough, but his ignorance of geography
added to his persistent terror. On the third day the broader waters
brought him to farms and houses. Then he left his boat and struck out
across the country until he came to a railway. In the station he made out
that it led to Philadelphia. Knowing that he would be safe there, he
bought a ticket and arrived in the city the next day--a free man with
money, intelligence, and an honest liking for steady work.

The Squire had the good habit of second thought. His wife knew it well
and had often found it valuable and to be trusted. At present he was
thoroughly disgusted with the consequences of what he knew to be in some
degree the result of his own feeling that he was bound to care for the
man whose tie to him was one few men would have considered as in any
serious degree obligatory. The night brought good counsel, and he made
up his mind next morning simply to let the foster-brother alone. Fate
decreed otherwise. In the morning he was asked by his wife to go with her
to the village; she wanted some advice. He did not ask what, but said,
"Of course. I am to try the barber's assistant I have brought from the
mills to shave me, and what is more important--Westways. I have put him
in our poor old Josiah's shop."

They went together to Pole's, and returning she stopped before the
barn-like building where Grace gathered on Sundays a scant audience to
hear the sermons which Rivers had told him had too much heart and too
little head.

"What is it?" asked Penhallow.

"I have heard, James, that their chapel (she never called it church) is
leaking--the roof, I mean. Could not you pay for a new roof?"

"Of course, my dear--of cour