started. Herbert was perhaps two minutes after them before he
mounted; but when he left the hall the man was still sitting there;
for the servant had not yet come back from his father's room.

But the clatter of his horse's hoofs was still distinct enough at
the hall door when the servant did come back, and in a serious tone
desired the stranger to follow him. "Sir Thomas will see you," said
the servant, putting some stress on the word will.

"Oh, I did not doubt that the least in the world," said Mr. Mollett,
as he followed the man along the passage.

The morning was very cold. There had been rainy weather, but it now
appeared to be a settled frost. The roads were rough and hard, and
the man who was driving them said a word now and again to his young
master as to the expediency of getting frost nails put into the
horse's shoes. "I'd better go gently, Mr. Herbert; it may be he might
come down at some of these pitches." So they did go gently, and at
last arrived safely at Berryhill.

And very busy they were there all day. The inspection of the site
for the mill was not their only employment. Here also was an
establishment for distributing food, and a crowd of poor half-fed
wretches were there to meet them. Not that at that time things
were so bad as they became afterwards. Men were not dying on the
road-side, nor as yet had the apathy of want produced its terrible
cure for the agony of hunger. The time had not yet come when the
famished living skeletons might be seen to reject the food which
could no longer serve to prolong their lives.

Though this had not come as yet, the complaints of the women
with their throngs of children were bitter enough; and it was
heart-breaking too to hear the men declare that they had worked like
horses, and that it was hard upon them now to see their children
starve like dogs. For in this earlier part of the famine the people
did not seem to realize the fact that this scarcity and want had come
from God. Though they saw the potatoes rotting in their own gardens,
under their own eyes, they still seemed to think that the rich men of
the land could stay the famine if they would; that the fault was with
them; that the famine could be put down if the rich would but stir
themselves to do it. Before it was over they were well aware that no
human power could suffice to put it down. Nay, more than that; they
had almost begun to doubt the power of God to bring back better days.

They strove,