swear lustily, but not
upon the Book. How given to understand, he chose not to explain, but he
reiterated that the chief should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe.

Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of
some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand that
laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.

"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You mustn't go in
there."

"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about him.

"Not now," continued the boy. "I will tell you all to-night. I must see
the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him--the Liar must
eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it--I hope I
did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth."

"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father.

The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the
air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour's
lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy's return.
The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the
desolation flying overhead--the wailing of the Mother of Plenty across
the bare-swept land--he caught intelligible signs of the beneficent order
of the universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its grasp of the
principle of human goodness, as manifested in the dear child who had just
left him; confirmed in its belief in the ultimate victory of good within
us, without which nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock,
stone, tree, and nothing more.

In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his
note-book: "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that
uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well
designed."

CHAPTER XI

Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton Thompson
awaited the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate, in
dolefullest mood, and suffered the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on
parting with him, had taken casual occasion to speak of the position of
the criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that International Treaty now
did what Universal Empire had aforetime done, and that among Atlantic
barbarians now, as among the Scythians of old, an offender would find
precarious refuge and an emissary haunting him.

In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and removed from the
influence of his