only light on him, I may bring him
back again. But oh, mother, mother, you and fayther mustn't do by him
as you _have_ done! you'll snap the spring if you strain it too hard;
you must draw our Sammul, you mustn't drive him, or maybe you'll drive
him right away from home, if you haven't driven him now."

So saying, she closed the door with a heavy heart, and took the same
road that her father had gone before her.

Slowly she walked, peering into the darkness on all sides, and fancying
every sound to be her brother's step. She lingered near the coke-ovens
and the forge, thinking that he might be lurking somewhere about, and
might see and recognise her as the fiery glow fell upon her figure. But
she lingered in vain. By the time she reached her uncle's, the moon had
fairly risen; again she lingered before entering the cottage, looking
round with a sickening hope that he might see her from some hiding-place
and come and speak to her, if it were but to say a last farewell. But
he came not. Utterly downcast, she entered the cottage, and heard that
her father had but lately left it, and that nothing had been seen of her
brother. To her aunt's earnest and repeated invitation to "tarry a
while," she replied,--

"No, Aunt Jenny; I mustn't tarry now. I'm wanted at home; I shall be
wanted more nor ever now. I'm gradely [see note 1] sick at heart. I
know it's no use fretting, but oh, I must fret! It were bad enough to
be without meat, without shoes, without clothes, without almost
everything; but it's worse nor all put together to be without our
Sammul."

She turned away, and, with a heavy sigh, took her way home again. The
moon was now shedding her calm light full on the path the poor girl was
treading, leaving in dark shadow a high wooded bank on her left hand.
Just a few feet up this bank, half-way between her uncle's house and her
own home, was the mouth of an old disused coal-pit-shaft. It had been
long abandoned, and was fenced off, though not very securely, by a few
decaying palings. On the bank above it grew a tangled mass of shrubs,
and one or two fine holly bushes. Betty was just in the act of passing
this spot when her eye fell on something that flashed in the moonbeams.
She stooped to see what it was; then with a cry of mingled surprise and
terror she snatched it from the ground. It was an open pocket-knife; on
the buck-horn handle were rudely scratched the letters SJ. It was her
brother's knife; th