jolery
and deceit, was more than cruel; it was brutal. He could have borne even
this hard saying so far as it concerned the woman's suffering, but for
the reflection that it made the man something worse than a coxcomb in
his own eyes.

The day was now far spent; the brilliant sun had dipped behind
Grisedale, and left a ridge of dark fells in the west. On the east the
green sides of Cat Bells and the Eel Crags were yellow at the summit,
where the hills held their last commerce with the hidden sun. Not a
breath of wind; not the rustle of a leaf; the valley lay still, save for
the echoing voices of the merrymakers in the booth below. The sky
overhead was blue, but a dark cloud, like the hulk of a ship, had
anchored lately to the north.

Hugh Ritson took the valley road back to Ghyll. He was visibly
perturbed; he walked with head much bent, stopped suddenly at times,
then snatched impetuously at the trailing bushes, and passed on. When he
was under Hindscarth, the sharp yap of dogs, followed by the bleat of
unseen sheep, caused him to look up, and he saw a group of men, like
emmets creeping on a dark bowlder, moving over a ridge of shelving rock.

There was a slight spasm of his features at that moment, and his foot
trailed more heavily as he went on. At a twist of the road he passed the
Laird Fisher. The old man looked less melancholy than usual. It was as
if the familiar sorrow sat a little more lightly to-night on the
half-ruined creature.

"Good-neet to you, sir, and how fend ye?" he said almost cheerily.

Hugh Ritson responded briefly.

"So you're not sleeping on the fell to-night, Matthew?" and as he spoke
his eyes wandered toward the fell road.

"Nay; I's not firing to-neet, for sure; my daughter is expecting me."

Hugh's eyes were now fixed intently on the road that crossed the foot of
the fell to the west. The charcoal-burner was moving off, and, following
at the same moment the upward direction of Hugh Ritson's gaze, he said:

"It's a baddish place yon, where your father is with Reuben and the lad,
and it's baddish weather that is coming, too--look at yon black cloud
over Walna Scar."

Then for an instant there was embarrassment in Hugh Ritson's eyes, and
he answered in a faltering commonplace.

"Ways me; but I must slip away home, sir; my laal lass will be weary
waiting. Good-neet to you, sir; good-neet."

"Good-night, Matthew, and God help you," said Hugh in a tone of
startling earnestness, his ey