n Corpse Ford," worse
than the drowning of the farmers. Or, at any rate, it made more stir
(which is of wider spread than sorrow), because of the eminence of the
man, and the length and width of his property. Neither could any one at
first believe in so quiet an end to so turbulent a course. Nevertheless
it came to pass, as lightly as if he were a reed or a bubble of the
river that belonged to him.

It was upon a gentle evening, a few days after Michaelmas of 1777. No
flood was in the river then, and no fog on the moor-land, only the usual
course of time, keeping the silent company of stars. The young moon was
down, and the hover of the sky (in doubt of various lights) was gone,
and the equal spread of obscurity soothed the eyes of any reasonable
man.

But the man who rode down to the river that night had little love of
reason. Headstrong chief of a headlong race, no will must depart a
hair's-breadth from his; and fifty years of arrogant port had stiffened
a neck too stiff at birth. Even now in the dim light his large square
form stood out against the sky like a cromlech, and his heavy arms swung
like gnarled boughs of oak, for a storm of wrath was moving him. In
his youth he had rebelled against his father; and now his own son was a
rebel to him.

"Good, my boy, good!" he said, within his grizzled beard, while his eyes
shone with fire, like the flints beneath his horse; "you have had your
own way, have you, then? But never shall you step upon an acre of
your own, and your timber shall be the gallows. Done, my boy, once and
forever."

Philip, the squire, the son of Richard, and father of Duncan Yordas,
with fierce satisfaction struck the bosom of his heavy Bradford
riding-coat, and the crackle of parchment replied to the blow, while
with the other hand he drew rein on the brink of the Tees sliding
rapidly.

The water was dark with the twinkle of the stars, and wide with the
vapor of the valley, but Philip Yordas in the rage of triumph laughed
and spurred his reflecting horse.

"Fool!" he cried, without an oath--no Yordas ever used an oath except in
playful moments--"fool! what fear you? There hangs my respected father's
chain. Ah, he was something like a man! Had I ever dared to flout him
so, he would have hanged me with it."

Wild with his wrong, he struck the rowel deep into the flank of his
wading horse, and in scorn of the depth drove him up the river. The
shoulders of the swimming horse broke the swirling