ant cruelty.

It was a shout of sudden excitement at the appearance of a horseman
cleaving the crowd at full gallop. The horse is hot and distressed, but
answers to the desperate spurring; the rider looks as if his eyes were
glazed by madness, and he saw nothing but what was unseen by others.
See, he has something in his hand--he is holding it up as if it were a
signal.

The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne, carrying in his hand a
hard-won release from death.

Chapter XLVIII

Another Meeting in the Wood

THE next day, at evening, two men were walking from opposite points
towards the same scene, drawn thither by a common memory. The scene was
the Grove by Donnithorne Chase: you know who the men were.

The old squire's funeral had taken place that morning, the will had been
read, and now in the first breathing-space, Arthur Donnithorne had come
out for a lonely walk, that he might look fixedly at the new future
before him and confirm himself in a sad resolution. He thought he could
do that best in the Grove.

Adam too had come from Stontion on Monday evening, and to-day he had
not left home, except to go to the family at the Hall Farm and tell
them everything that Mr. Irwine had left untold. He had agreed with the
Poysers that he would follow them to their new neighbourhood, wherever
that might be, for he meant to give up the management of the woods,
and, as soon as it was practicable, he would wind up his business with
Jonathan Burge and settle with his mother and Seth in a home within
reach of the friends to whom he felt bound by a mutual sorrow.

"Seth and me are sure to find work," he said. "A man that's got our
trade at his finger-ends is at home everywhere; and we must make a new
start. My mother won't stand in the way, for she's told me, since I came
home, she'd made up her mind to being buried in another parish, if I
wished it, and if I'd be more comfortable elsewhere. It's wonderful
how quiet she's been ever since I came back. It seems as if the very
greatness o' the trouble had quieted and calmed her. We shall all be
better in a new country, though there's some I shall be loath to leave
behind. But I won't part from you and yours, if I can help it, Mr.
Poyser. Trouble's made us kin."

"Aye, lad," said Martin. "We'll go out o' hearing o' that man's name.
But I doubt we shall ne'er go far enough for folks not to find out as
we've got them belonging to us as are transported o'er the seas