ntervals.

"What bee'st going to do vor to stop it?" he asked at last.

"What can I do, Bill? She won't listen to me--she never does. Anything
I say always makes her go the other way. She wouldn't believe anything I
said against him. It would only make her stick to him all the more.

"Dost think," Bill suggested after another long pause, "that if we got
up a sort of depitation--Luke Marner and four or five other steady chaps
as knows him; yes, and Polly Powlett, she could do the talking--to go to
her and tell her what a thundering dad un he is--dost think it would do
any good?"

Even in his bitter grief Ned could hardly help smiling at the thought of
such a deputation waiting upon his mother.

"No, it wouldn't do, Bill."

Bill was silent again for some time.

"Dost want un killed, Maister Ned?" he said in a low voice at last;
"'cause if ye do oi would do it for ye. Oi would lay down my life for
ye willing, as thou knowst; and hanging ain't much, arter all. They say
'tis soon over. Anyhow oi would chance it, and perhaps they wouldn't
find me out."

Ned grasped his friend's hand.

"I could kill him myself!" he exclaimed passionately. "I have been
thinking of it; but what would be the good? I know what my mother
is--when once she has made up her mind there's no turning her; and if
this fellow were out of the way, likely enough she would take up with
another in no time."

"But it couldn't been as bad as if wur Foxey," Bill urged, "he be the
very worsest lot about Marsden."

"I would do it," Ned said passionately; "I would do it over and over
again, but for the disgrace it would bring on Charlie and Lucy."

"But there would be no disgrace if oi was to do it, Maister Ned."

"Yes, there would, Bill--a worse disgrace than if I did it myself. It
would be a nice thing to let you get hanged for my affairs; but let him
look out--let him try to ill treat Charlie and Lucy, and he will see
if I don't get even with him. I am not so much afraid of that--it's the
shame of the thing. Only to think that all Marsden should know my mother
is going to be married again within a year of my father's death, and
that after being his wife she was going to take such a man as this! It's
awful, downright awful, Bill!"

"Then what art thou going to do, Maister Ned--run away and 'list for a
soldier, or go to sea?"

"I wish I could," Ned exclaimed. "I would turn my back on Marsden and
never come back again, were it not for the little o