fied. Sim's
head hung over Ralph's arm: his face was as pale as death.

"Out of the way," said Ralph, brushing past a great lumbering fellow,
with his mouth agape.

The company found their tongues at last. Were they to sit with "this
hang-gallows of a tailor"? The landlord, thinking himself appealed to,
replied that he "couldn't hev na brulliment" in his house.

"There need be no broil," said Ralph, laying the insensible form on a
seat and proceeding to strip off the wet outer garments. Then turning
to the hostess, he said,--

"Martha, bring me water, quick."

Martha turned about and obeyed him without a word.

"He'll be better soon," said Ralph to Robbie Anderson. He was
sprinkling water on the white face that lay before him. Robbie had
recovered his wakefulness, and was kneeling at Sim's feet, chafing his
hands.

Rotha stood at her father's side, motionless.

"There, he's coming to. Martha," said Ralph, "hadn't you better take
Rotha to the kitchen fire?"

The two women left the room.

Sim's eyes opened; there was a watery humor in them which was not
tears. The color came back to his cheeks, but with the return of
consciousness his face grew thinner and more haggard. He heaved a
heavy sigh, and seemed to realize his surroundings. With the only hand
disengaged (Robbie held one of them) he clutched at Ralph's belt.

"I'm better--let me go," he said in a hoarse voice, trying to rise.

"No!" said Ralph,--"no!" and he gently pushed him back into his
recumbent position.

"You had best let the snuffling waistrel go," said one of the men in a
surly tone. "Maybe he never fainted at all."

It was the blacksmith who had growled at the mention of Ralph's name
in Ralph's absence. They called him Joe Garth.

"Be silent, you loon," answered Robbie Anderson, turning upon the last
speaker.

Ralph seemed not to have heard him.

"Here," he said, tossing Sim's coat to Matthew, who had returned with
a new pipe to his seat in the chimney corner, "dry that at the fire."
The coat had been growing hard with the frost.

"This wants the batling stone ower it," said the old weaver, spreading
it out before him.

"See to this, schoolmaster," said Ralph, throwing Sim's cap into his
lap.

Monsey jumped, with a scream, out of his seat as though stung by an
adder.

Ralph looked at him for a moment with an expression of pity.

"I might have known you were timid at heart, schoolmaster. Perhaps
you're gallant over a glass."