generally went in for half an hour's talk with
Luke Marner and Mary Powlett before going off for the night to sleep at
the mill. With these three friends, who all were passionately convinced
of his innocence, he was more at his ease than anywhere else, for at
home the thought of the absent figure upstairs was a never ceasing pain.

"The wind is very high tonight," Ned said one evening as the cottage
shook with a gust which swept down from the moor.

"Ay, that it be," Luke agreed; "but it is nowt to a storm oi saw when oi
war a young chap on t' coast!"

"I did not know you had ever been away from Varley," Ned said, "tell me
about it, Luke."

"Well, it coomed round i' this way. One of t' chaps from here had a
darter who had married and gone to live nigh t' coast, and he went vor a
week to see her.

"Theere'd been a storm when he was there, and he told us aboot the water
being all broke up into furrowes, vor all the world like a plowed field,
only each ridge wur twice as high as one of our houses, and they came
a moving along as fast as a horse could gallop, and when they hit the
rocks vlew up into t' air as hoigh as the steeple o' Marsden church. It
seemed to us as this must be a lie, and there war a lot of talk oor it,
and at last vour on us made up our moinds as we would go over and see
vor ourselves.

"It war a longer tramp nor we had looked vor, and though we sometoimes
got a lift i' a cart we was all pretty footsore when we got to the end
of our journey. The village as we was bound for stood oop on t' top of a
flattish hill, one side of which seemed to ha' been cut away by a knife,
and when you got to the edge there you were a-standing at the end o' the
world. Oi know when we got thar and stood and looked out from the top o'
that wall o' rock thar warn't a word among us.

"We was a noisy lot, and oi didn't think as nothing would ha' silenced
a cropper; but thar we stood a-looking over at the end of the world, oi
should say for five minutes, wi'out a word being spoke. Oi can see it
now. There warn't a breath of wind nor a cloud i' the sky. It seemed to
oi as if the sky went away as far as we could see, and then seemed to
be doubled down in a line and to coom roight back agin to our feet. It
joost took away our breath, and seemed somehow to bring a lump into the
throat. Oi talked it over wi' the others afterward and we'd all felt
just the same.

"It beat us altogether, and you never see a lot of croppers so qu