saw the dim
figure of her husband returning alone, Mrs Darvell's courage quite
forsook her.

"I shall never see him no more," she said to herself, and cried
bitterly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And where was "our Frank" meanwhile?

At the moment when Mrs Darvell began to climb Whiteleaf Hill with her
heavy basket, Frank was lying at the foot of a big beech-tree in the
wood near his home; his face was buried in his hands, and every now and
then sobs shook his little thin frame. For it had been a most
unfortunate day for him; everything had gone wrong, and by the time the
evening came and work was over his father's wrath was high. Frank knew
what to expect, and he also remembered that there would be no mother at
home to shield him from punishment, so waiting a favourable moment he
slipped off into the wood before he was missed. Then he flung himself
on the ground and cried, because he felt so tired, and weak, and
hopeless; and as he thought of his father's angry face and heavy
uplifted hand he shivered with terror. How he longed for someone to
comfort and speak kindly to him. Soon, he knew, his mother would be in
from market; there would be a blazing fire at home, and supper, and a
warm corner. Should he venture back? But then, morning would come
again, and the hard work, and he would have to stumble along the sticky
furrows all day, and there would be blows and threatenings to end with.
No, he could not go back; it would be better even, he said to himself,
to beg for his bread like the tramps he had seen sometimes in Danecross.

As he came to this conclusion he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked
round him. It was about six o'clock, and already very dusk in the wood,
though the little dancing leaves of the Leeches could not make much
shadow yet, for it was only April; all round the boy rose the grey
straight stems of the trees, and tufts of primroses shone out whitely
here and there on the ground. It was perfectly still and silent, except
that a cold little wind rustled the branches, and the birds were making
a few last twittering notes before they went to sleep--"a harmony," as
the country folks called it. Frank got up and hurried on, for he knew
that directly mother returned search would be made for him. He must get
a long way on before that, and hide somewhere for the night. That side
of the wood near Green Highlands was quite familiar to him, and thoug