ermost in his thoughts--the trial, and what had
come of it. She succeeded but too well.

Garth listened in silence, and then slunk off doggedly to the smithy.

"I'm scarce well enough for work to-day," he said, coming back in half
an hour.

His mother drew the settle to the fire, and fixed the cushions that he
might lie and rest.

But no rest was to be his. He went back to the anvil and worked till
the perspiration dripped from his forehead. Then he returned to the
house.

"My mouth is parched to-day, somehow," he said; "did you say a parched
mouth was a sign?"

"Shaf, lad! thou'rt hot wi' thy wark."

Garth went back once more to the smithy, and, writhing under the
torture of suspense, he worked until the very clothes he wore were
moist to the surface. Then he went into the house again.

"How my brain throbs!" he said; "surely you said the throbbing brain
was a sign, mother; and my brain _does_ throb."

"Tut, tut! it's nobbut some maggot thou's gitten intil it."

"My pulse, too, it gallops, mother. You said the galloping pulse was a
sign. Don't say you did not. I'm sure of it, I'm sure of it; and _my_
pulse gallops. I could bear the parched mouth and the throbbing brain
if this pulse did not run so fast."

"Get away wi' thee, thou dummel-heed. What fagot has got hold on thy
fancy now?"

There was only the swollen gland wanted to make the dread symptoms
complete.

Garth went back to the anvil once more. His eyes rolled in his head.
They grew as red as the iron that he was welding. He swore at the boy
who helped him, and struck him fiercely. He shouted frantically, and
flung away the hammer at every third blow. The boy slunk off, and went
home affrighted. At a sudden impulse, Garth tore away the shirt from
his breast, and thrust his left hand beneath his right arm. With that
the suspense was ended. A mood of the deepest sadness and dejection
supervened. Shuddering in every limb beneath all his perspiration, the
blacksmith returned for the last time to the house.

"I wouldn't mind the parched mouth and the throbbing brain; no, nor
the galloping pulse, mother; but oh, mother, mother, the gland, it's
swelled; ey, ey, it's swelled. I'm doomed, I'm doomed. No use saying
no. I'm a dead man, that's the truth, that's the truth, mother."

And then the disease, whether plague or other fever, passed its fiery
hand over the throbbing brain of the blacksmith, and he was put to bed
raving.

Little Betsy, like the