r to 'em,' said another. 'Not one of 'em spoke.'

'What are you going to do?' said Stockdale.

'I'd fain go back to Moynton, and have at 'em again!' said Latimer.

'So would we!' said his comrades.

'Fight till we die!' said Latimer.

'We will, we will!' said his men.

'But,' said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the plantation,
'we don't know that these chaps with black faces were Moynton men? And
proof is a hard thing.'

'So it is,' said the rest.

'And therefore we won't do nothing at all,' said Latimer, with complete
dispassionateness. 'For my part, I'd sooner be them than we. The
clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords those two
strapping women tied round 'em. My opinion is, now I have had time to
think o't, that you may serve your Gover'ment at too high a price. For
these two nights and days I have not had an hour's rest; and, please God,
here's for home-along.'

The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking
Stockdale for his timely assistance, they parted from him at the Cross,
taking themselves the western road, and Stockdale going back to Nether-
Moynton.

During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most painful
kind. As soon as he got into the house, and before entering his own
rooms, he advanced to the door of the little back parlour in which Lizzy
usually sat with her mother. He found her there alone. Stockdale went
forward, and, like a man in a dream, looked down upon the table that
stood between him and the young woman, who had her bonnet and cloak still
on. As he did not speak, she looked up from her chair at him, with
misgiving in her eye.

'Where are they gone?' he then said listlessly.

'Who?--I don't know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came straight
in here.'

'If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a great
profit to you, I suppose?'

'A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett's, a share to each of the
two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped us.'

'And you still think,' he went on slowly, 'that you will not give this
business up?'

Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. 'Don't ask that,' she
whispered. 'You don't know what you are asking. I must tell you, though
I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all I have to keep my
mother and myself with.'

He was astonished. 'I did not dream of such a thing,' he said. 'I would
rather ha