ter some trespassing cattle.

I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at identification
as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's identity with the Church
Scarsdale man, I had daily grown less confident; and, indeed, had it been
proposed to bring it to the test of a wager, I do not think I should,
in the language of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original
opinion. There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me
uncomfortable; and there was another uncertainty to enhance the unpleasant
sense of ambiguity.

On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs of several ranks
of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared by the hatchet, perhaps
sold, for there were large letters and Roman numerals traced upon them in
red chalk. I sighed as I passed them by, not because it was wrongfully
done, for I really rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas was well
advised in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old family
decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries to come,
under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three hundred years ago had
hawked and hunted!

On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince meanwhile
pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While thus listlessly seated,
the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying a basket.

'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a pace or raising
her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look--fayther spies us; I'll tell ye next
turn.'

'Next turn'--when was that? Well, she might be returning; and as she could
not then say more than she had said, in merely passing without a pause, I
concluded to wait for a short time and see what would come of it.

After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw Dickon
Hawkes--Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him--with an axe in his hand,
prowling luridly among the timber.

Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and by-and-by passed
me, muttering to himself. He plainly could not understand what business I
could have in that particular part of the Windmill Wood, and let me see it
in his countenance.

His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near, and she was
silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning Mary Quince at some
little distance; and as she passed precisely in the same way, she said--

'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the world's worth.'

The injunction was so