red the girl, shutting the door behind her, and placing
herself before it, 'William has come back.'

'Who!' said the man with a start.

'Hush,' replied the girl, 'William; brother William.'

'And what does he want?' said the man, with an effort at
composure--'money? meat? drink? He's come to the wrong shop for that, if
he does. Give me the candle--give me the candle, fool--I ain't going to
hurt him.' He snatched the candle from her hand, and walked into the
room.

Sitting on an old box, with his head resting on his hand, and his eyes
fixed on a wretched cinder fire that was smouldering on the hearth, was a
young man of about two-and-twenty, miserably clad in an old coarse jacket
and trousers. He started up when his father entered.

'Fasten the door, Mary,' said the young man hastily--'Fasten the door.
You look as if you didn't know me, father. It's long enough, since you
drove me from home; you may well forget me.'

'And what do you want here, now?' said the father, seating himself on a
stool, on the other side of the fireplace. 'What do you want here, now?'

'Shelter,' replied the son. 'I'm in trouble: that's enough. If I'm
caught I shall swing; that's certain. Caught I shall be, unless I stop
here; that's _as_ certain. And there's an end of it.'

'You mean to say, you've been robbing, or murdering, then?' said the
father.

'Yes, I do,' replied the son. 'Does it surprise you, father?' He looked
steadily in the man's face, but he withdrew his eyes, and bent them on
the ground.

'Where's your brothers?' he said, after a long pause.

'Where they'll never trouble you,' replied his son: 'John's gone to
America, and Henry's dead.'

'Dead!' said the father, with a shudder, which even he could not express.

'Dead,' replied the young man. 'He died in my arms--shot like a dog, by
a gamekeeper. He staggered back, I caught him, and his blood trickled
down my hands. It poured out from his side like water. He was weak, and
it blinded him, but he threw himself down on his knees, on the grass, and
prayed to God, that if his mother was in heaven, He would hear her
prayers for pardon for her youngest son. "I was her favourite boy,
Will," he said, "and I am glad to think, now, that when she was dying,
though I was a very young child then, and my little heart was almost
bursting, I knelt down at the foot of the bed, and thanked God for having
made me so fond of her as to have never once done anything to bri