ng the
tears into her eyes. O Will, why was she taken away, and father left?"
There's his dying words, father,' said the young man; 'make the best you
can of 'em. You struck him across the face, in a drunken fit, the
morning we ran away; and here's the end of it.'

The girl wept aloud; and the father, sinking his head upon his knees,
rocked himself to and fro.

'If I am taken,' said the young man, 'I shall be carried back into the
country, and hung for that man's murder. They cannot trace me here,
without your assistance, father. For aught I know, you may give me up to
justice; but unless you do, here I stop, until I can venture to escape
abroad.'

For two whole days, all three remained in the wretched room, without
stirring out. On the third evening, however, the girl was worse than she
had been yet, and the few scraps of food they had were gone. It was
indispensably necessary that somebody should go out; and as the girl was
too weak and ill, the father went, just at nightfall.

He got some medicine for the girl, and a trifle in the way of pecuniary
assistance. On his way back, he earned sixpence by holding a horse; and
he turned homewards with enough money to supply their most pressing wants
for two or three days to come. He had to pass the public-house. He
lingered for an instant, walked past it, turned back again, lingered once
more, and finally slunk in. Two men whom he had not observed, were on
the watch. They were on the point of giving up their search in despair,
when his loitering attracted their attention; and when he entered the
public-house, they followed him.

'You'll drink with me, master,' said one of them, proffering him a glass
of liquor.

'And me too,' said the other, replenishing the glass as soon as it was
drained of its contents.

The man thought of his hungry children, and his son's danger. But they
were nothing to the drunkard. He _did_ drink; and his reason left him.

'A wet night, Warden,' whispered one of the men in his ear, as he at
length turned to go away, after spending in liquor one-half of the money
on which, perhaps, his daughter's life depended.

'The right sort of night for our friends in hiding, Master Warden,'
whispered the other.

'Sit down here,' said the one who had spoken first, drawing him into a
corner. 'We have been looking arter the young un. We came to tell him,
it's all right now, but we couldn't find him 'cause we hadn't got the
precise directio