ou can't
du.'"

And that is truth!

Dan went on again:

"'You won't tell me where your son is!' but old Pearse never blinked.

"'I won't,' he said, 'and now you may get out. I lie here an old man
alone, with no use to my legs, night on night, an' the house open; any
rapscallion could get in; d' ye think I'm afraid of you?'

"We were beat; and walked out without a word. But that old man; I've
thought of him a lot--ninety-two, and lying there. Whatever he's been,
and they tell you rum things of him, whatever his son may be, he's a man.
It's not what he said, nor that there was anything to be afraid of just
then, but somehow it's the idea of the old chap lying there. I don't
ever wish to see a better plucked one...."

We sat silent after that; out of doors the light began to stir among the
leaves. There were all kinds of rustling sounds, as if the world were
turning over in bed.

Suddenly Dan said:

"He's cheated me. I paid him to clear out and leave her alone. D' you
think she's asleep?" He's made no appeal for sympathy, he'd take pity
for an insult; but he feels it badly.

"I'm tired as a cat," he said at last, and went to sleep on my bed.

It's broad daylight now; I too am tired as a cat....

V

"Saturday, 6th August.

.......I take up my tale where I left off yesterday.... Dan and I
started as soon as we could get Mrs. Hopgood to give us coffee. The old
lady was more tentative, more undecided, more pouncing, than I had ever
seen her. She was manifestly uneasy: Ha-apgood--who "don't slape" don't
he, if snores are any criterion--had called out in the night, "Hark to
th' 'arses' 'oofs!" Had we heard them? And where might we be going
then? 'Twas very earrly to start, an' no breakfast. Haapgood had said
it was goin' to shaowerr. Miss Pasiance was not to 'er violin yet, an'
Mister Ford 'e kept 'is room. Was it?--would there be--? "Well, an'
therr's an 'arvest bug; 'tis some earrly for they!" Wonderful how she
pounces on all such creatures, when I can't even see them. She pressed
it absently between finger and thumb, and began manoeuvring round another
way. Long before she had reached her point, we had gulped down our
coffee, and departed. But as we rode out she came at a run, holding her
skirts high with either hand, raised her old eyes bright and anxious in
their setting of fine wrinkles, and said:

"'Tidden sorrow for her?"

A shrug of the shoulders was all the answer she got. W