ce, but I'm not going to argue that with
you now. There would be no use in it. I've come to tell you I fear
that Sam was at no good last night."

"That's like enough."

"I had better tell you the truth at once. He was about my place with
two ruffians."

"And you wants to take him afore the magistrate?"

"I want nothing of the kind. I would make almost any sacrifice
rather. I had him yesterday night by the collar of the coat, and I
let him go free."

"If he couldn't shake himself free o' you, Muster Fenwick, without
any letting in the matter, he ain't no son of mine."

"I was armed, and he couldn't. But what does that matter? What does
matter is this;--that they who were with him were thoroughly bad
fellows. Was he at home last night?"

"You'd better ax his mother, Muster Fenwick. The truth is, I don't
care much to be talking of him at all. It's time I was in the mill, I
believe. There's no one much to help me now, barring the hired man."
So saying, he got up and passed into the mill without making the
slightest form of salutation.

Mr. Fenwick paused for a minute, looking after the old man, and then
went into the house. He knew very well that his treatment from the
women would be very different to that which the miller had vouchsafed
to him; but on that very account it would be difficult for him to
make his communication. He had, however, known all this before he
came. Old Brattle would, quite of course, be silent, suspicious, and
uncivil. It had become the nature of the man to be so, and there was
no help for it. But the two women would be glad to see him,--would
accept his visit as a pleasure and a privilege; and on this account
he found it to be very hard to say unpleasant words to them. But the
unpleasant words must be spoken. Neither in duty nor in kindness
could he know what he had learned last night, and be silent on this
matter to the young man's family. He entered the house, and turned
into the large kitchen or keeping-room on the left, in which the
two women were almost always to be found. This was a spacious,
square, low apartment, in which there was a long grate with
various appurtenances for boiling, roasting, and baking. It was an
old-fashioned apparatus, but Mrs. Brattle thought it to be infinitely
more commodious than any of the newer-fangled ranges which from time
to time she had been taken to see. Opposite to the fire-place there
was a small piece of carpet, without which the stone floor wou