orry that I have something to say that will vex
you."

"Eh, Mr. Fenwick! Bad news? 'Deed and I think there's but little good
news left to us now,--little that comes from the tongues of men. It's
bad news that is always coming here. Mr. Fenwick,--what is it, sir?"

Then he repeated the question he had before put to the miller about
Sam. Where was Sam last night?--She only shook her head. Did he sleep
at home?--She shook her head again. Had he breakfasted at home?

"'Deed no, sir. I haven't set eyes on him since before yesterday."

"But how does he live? His father does not give him money, I
suppose?"

"There's little enough to give him, Mr. Fenwick. When he is at the
mill his father do pay him a some'at over and above his keep. It
isn't much, sir. Young men must have a some'at in their pockets at
times."

"He has too much in his pockets, I fear. I wish he had nothing, so
that he needs must come home for his meals. He works at the mill,
doesn't he?"

"At times, sir; and there isn't a lad in all Bullumpton,"--for so the
name was ordinarily pronounced,--"who can do a turn of work to beat
him."

"Do he and his father agree pretty well?"

"At times, sir. Times again his father don't say much to him. The
master ain't given to much talking in the mill, and Sam, when he's
there, works with a will. There's times when his father softens down
to him, and then to see 'em, you'd think they was all in all to each
other. There's a stroke of the master about Sam hisself, at times,
Mr. Fenwick, and the old man's eyes gladden to see it. There's none
so near his heart now as poor Sam."

"If he were as honest a man as his father, I could forgive all the
rest," said Mr. Fenwick slowly, meaning to imply that he was not
there now to complain of church observances neglected, or of small
irregularities of life. The paganism of the old miller had often been
the subject of converse between the parson and Mrs. Brattle, it being
a matter on which she had many an unhappy thought. He, groping darkly
among subjects which he hardly dared to touch in her presence lest
he should seem to unteach that in private which he taught in public,
had subtlely striven to make her believe that though she, through her
faith, would be saved, he, the husband, might yet escape that doom
of everlasting fire, which to her was so stern a reality that she
thought of its fury with a shudder whenever she heard of the world's
wickedness. When Parson Fenwick had fi