lls? Oi consider as how that has been the best noight's work as ha'
been done in Yorkshire for years and years. There ain't a-been anything
else talked of in Varley since. I ha' heard a score of guesses as to how
you found owt what was a-going on in toime to get to the mill--thank God
there ain't one as suspects as our Polly brought you the news. My own
boys doan't know, and ain't a-going to; not as they would say a word as
would harm Polly for worlds, but as they gets a bit bigger and takes to
drink, there's no saying what mightn't slip out when they are in liquor.
So you and oi and Bill be the only ones as ull ever know the ins and
outs o' that there business."

CHAPTER XX: CLEARED AT LAST.

The night was a wild one. The weather had changed suddenly, and the rain
beat fiercely in the faces of the hands as they made their way back from
the mill up to Varley. As the night came on the storm increased. The
wind as it swept across the moor swirled down into the hollow in which
Varley stood, as if it would scoop the houses out of their foundations,
and the drops of rain were driven against roof and wall with the force
of hailstones.

Bill Swinton was sitting up again with John Stukeley, and as he bent
over the sick man's bed and tenderly lifted his head while he held a
cup with some cooling drink to his lips, the contrast between his broad,
powerful figure, and his face, marked with the characteristics alike
of good temper, kindness, and a resolute will, and the thin, emaciated
invalid was very striking. Stukeley's face was without a vestige of
color; his eyes were hollow and surrounded by dark circles; his cheeks
were of an ashen gray pallor, which deepened almost to a lead color
round his lips.

"Thou ought'st not to talk so much, John," Bill was saying. "Thou
know'st the doctor said thou must not excite thyself."

"It makes no difference, Bill, no difference at all, talk or not talk.
What does it matter? I am dying, and he knows it, and I know it--so do
you. That bit of lead in my body has done its work. Strange, isn't it,
that you should be here nursing me when I have thought of shooting you
a score of times? A year ago it seemed absurd that Polly Powlett should
like a boy like you better than a man like me, and yet I was sure it was
because of you she would have nothing to say to me; but she was right,
you will make the best husband of the two. I suppose it's because of
that I sent for you. I was very fond