was this woman so deeply moved? Could it be----?
Nonsense; he stifled the thought before it was born.

"Don't cry," Geoffrey said, "the people will see you, Beatrice" (for the
first time he called her by her christian name); "pray do not cry. It
distresses me. You are upset, and no wonder. That fellow Beecham Bones
ought to be hanged, and I told him so. It is his work, though he never
meant it to go so far. He's frightened enough now, I can tell you."

Beatrice controlled herself with an effort.

"What happened," he said, "I will tell you as we walk along. No, don't
go up to the farm. He is not a pleasant sight, poor fellow. When I got
up there, Beecham Bones was spouting away to the mob--his long hair
flying about his back--exciting them to resist laws made by brutal
thieving landlords, and all that kind of gibberish; telling them that
they would be supported by a great party in Parliament, &c., &c. The
people, however, took it all good-naturedly enough. They had a beautiful
effigy of your father swinging on a pole, with a placard on his breast,
on which was written, 'The robber of the widow and the orphan,' and
they were singing Welsh songs. Only I saw Jones, who was more than half
drunk, cursing and swearing in Welsh and English. When the auctioneer
began to sell, Jones went into the house and Bones went with him.
After enough had been sold to pay the debt, and while the mob was still
laughing and shouting, suddenly the back door of the house opened and
out rushed Jones, now quite drunk, a gun in his hand and Bones hanging
on to his coat-tails. I was talking to the auctioneer at the moment,
and my belief is that the brute thought that I was Johnson. At any rate,
before anything could be done he lifted the gun and fired, at me, as I
think. The charge, however, passed my head and hit poor Johnson full in
the face, killing him dead. That is all the story."

"And quite enough, too," said Beatrice with a shudder. "What times we
live in! I feel quite sick."

Supper that night was a very melancholy affair. Old Mr. Granger was
altogether thrown off his balance; and even Elizabeth's iron nerves were
shaken.

"It could not be worse, it could not be worse," moaned the old man,
rising from the table and walking up and down the room.

"Nonsense, father," said Elizabeth the practical. "He might have been
shot before he had sold the hay, and then you would not have got your
tithe."

Geoffrey could not help smiling at this