y before
another dawn and send him hot-foot at daybreak to the Red House. He
would wait and watch himself and see.

His reflections were here cut short, for a shrill voice broke in upon
them, and Clement, now within a hundred yards of his own cottage door,
saw Mr. Lezzard before him.

"At last I've found 'e! Been huntin' this longful time, tu. The Missis
wants 'e--your aunt I should say."

"Wants me?"

"Ess. 'T is wan o' her bad days, wi' her liver an' lights a bitin' at
her like savage creatures. She'm set on seein' you, an' if I go
home-along without 'e, she'll awnly cuss."

"What can she want me for?"

"She 's sick 'n' taken a turn for the wuss, last few days. Doctor
Parsons doan't reckon she can hold out much longer. 'Tis the
drink--she'm soaked in it, like a sponge."

"I'll come," said Hicks, and half an hour later he approached his aunt's
dwelling and entered it.

Mrs. Lezzard was now sunk into a condition of chronic crapulence which
could only end in one way. Her husband had been ordered again and again
to keep all liquor from her, but, truth to tell, he made no very
sustained effort to do so. The old man was sufficiently oppressed by his
own physical troubles, and as the only happiness earth now held for him
must depend on the departure of his wife, he watched her drinking
herself to death without concern and even smiled in secret at the
possibility of some happy, quiet, and affluent years when she was gone.

Mrs. Lezzard lay on the sofa in her parlour, and a great peony-coloured
face with coal-black eyes in it greeted Clement. She gave him her hand
and bid her husband be gone. Then, when Gaffer had vanished, his wife
turned to her nephew.

"I've sent for you, Clem Hicks, for more reasons than wan. I be gwaine
down the hill fast, along o' marryin' this cursed mommet[12] of a man,
Lezzard. He lied about his money--him a pauper all the time; and now he
waits and watches me o' nights, when he thinks I'm drunk or dreamin' an'
I ban't neither. He watches, wi' his auld, mangy poll shakin', an' the
night-lamp flingin' the black shadow of un 'gainst the bed curtain an'
shawin' wheer his wan front tooth sticks up like a yellow stone in a
charred field. Blast un to hell! He'm waitin' for my money, an' I've
told un he's to have it. But 'twas only to make the sting bite deeper
when the time comes. Not a penny--not a farthing--him or any of 'em."

[12] _Mommet_ = scarecrow.

"Don't get angry with him. He'