h of a quarter of an hour.

But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite forgot
the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the
dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three
rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians,
as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs.
Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her
guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on
the serpent's mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose
her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too markedly,
she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with
cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like courses,
direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-
kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the
circumference of an hour.

While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's
pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party
had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about
the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with
the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs
from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through
the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, further
on in its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage.

It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky
was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of
doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely
pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had
somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not
so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At
a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared
tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the
judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that this was
chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than five-feet-
eight or nine.

Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as
in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it
was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort