e same instant
brought the other hand down on the table.

Without speaking, Mr. Bonnithorne shuffled back into his seat. Mrs.
Ritson, letting fall her knitting into her lap, sat and dropped her face
into her hands. Paul took her by the arm, raised her up, and led her out
of the room. As he did so, he passed the couch on which Hugh Ritson lay,
and looked down with mingled anger and contempt into his brother's
indifferent eyes.

When the door closed behind them, Hugh Ritson and Mr. Bonnithorne rose
together. There was a momentary gleam of mutual consciousness. Then
instantly, suddenly, by one impulse, the two men joined hands across the
table.

CHAPTER VII.

The cloud that had hung over Walna Scar broke above the valley, and a
heavy rain-storm, with low mutterings of distant thunder, drove the
pleasure-people from the meadow to the booth. It was a long canvas tent
with a drinking-bar at one end, and stalls in the corners for the sale
of gingerbreads and gimcracks. The grass under it was trodden flat, and
in patches the earth was bare and wet beneath the trapesing feet of the
people. They were a mixed and curious company. In a ring that was
cleared by an athletic plowman the fiddler-postman of Newlands, Tom o'
Dint, was seated on a tub turned bottom up. He was a little man with
bowed legs and feet a foot long.

"Now, lasses, step forret! Dunnot be blate. Come along with ye, any as
have springiness in them!"

The rough invitation was accepted without too much timidity by several
damsels dressed in gorgeous gowns and bonnets. Then up and down, one,
two, three, cut and shuffle, cross, under, and up and down again.

"I'll be mounting my best nag and comin' ower to Scara Crag and tappin'
at your window some neet soon," whispered a young fellow to the girl he
had just danced with.

She laughed a little mockingly.

"Your best nag, Willy?"

"Weel--the maister's."

She laughed again, and a sneer curled her lip. "You Colebank chaps are
famous sweethearts, I hear. Fare-te-weel, Willy."

And she twisted on her heel. He followed her up.

"Dunnet gowl, Aggy. Mappen I'll be maister man mysel' soon."

Aggy pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared.

"She's packed him off wi' a flea in his ear," said an elderly man
standing near.

"Just like all the lave of them," said another, "snurling up her neb at
a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of some rich uncle in
Austrilly?"

"Ey, and stuff her with