to see a man buy a reprieve from Death!" he continued. "Never do
that--never? Did you ever think of it, Sim, that what happens is
always the best?"

"It scarce looks like it, Ralph; that it don't."

"Then it's because you don't look long enough. In the end, it is
_always_ the best that happens. Truth and the right are the last on
the field; it always has been so, and always will be; it only needs
that you should wait to the close of the battle to see _that_."

There would have been a sublime solemnity in these rude words of a
rude man of action if Sim had divined that they were in fact the
meditations of one who believed himself to be already under the shadow
of his death.

* * * * *

The horses broke again into a canter, and it was long before the reins
of the riders brought them to another pause. The day was bitterly
cold, and, notwithstanding the exertion of riding, Sim's teeth
chattered sometimes as with ague, and his fingers were numb and stiff.
It was an hour before noon when the travellers left Kendal, and now
they had ridden for two hours. The brighter clouds of the morning had
disappeared, and a dull, leaden sky was overhead. Gradually the heavy
atmosphere seemed to close about them, yet a cutting wind blew smartly
from the east.

"A snowstorm is coming, Sim. Look yonder; how thick it hangs over the
Gray Crag sheer ahead! We must push on, or we'll be overtaken."

"How long will it be coming?" asked Sim.

"Five hours full, perhaps longer," said Ralph; "we may reach Penrith
before that time."

"Penrith!"

Sim's tone was one of equal surprise and fear.

Ralph gave him a quick glance; then reaching over the neck of his
horse to stroke its long mane, he said, with the manner of one who
makes too palpable an effort to change the subject of conversation:
"Isn't this mare something like old Betsy? I couldn't but mark how
like she was to our old mare that is lost when the ostler brought her
into the yard this morning."

Sim made no reply.

"Poor Betsy!" said Ralph, and dropped his head on to his breast.

Another long canter. When the riders drew up again it was to take a
steadier view of some objects in the distance which had simultaneously
awakened their curiosity.

"There seem to be many of them," said Ralph; and, shielding his ear
from the wind, he added, "do you catch their voices?"

"Are they quarrelling?--is it a riot?" Sim asked.

"Quick, and let us see."