uel, come up over the stile from the lane, and James
Colpus running towards her.

What had happened? Whither had Jonas vanished? She drew back and
passed her hand, still holding the ironstone, over her face.

Then she saw Thomas and Samuel stoop, kneel, and Thomas swing
himself down and also disappear; thereupon up came the farmer.

"What is it? Has he fallen in--into the kiln?"

That the reader may understand what had occurred, it is necessary
that a few words of explanation should be given.

At the time when the country was densely wooded with oaks, then the
farmers were wont annually to draw chalk from the quarries in the
flank of the Hog's Back, that singular ridge, steep as a Gothic
roof, running east and west from Guildford, and to cart this to
their farms. On each of these was a small brick kiln, constructed
in a sand-bank beside a lane, so that the chalk and fuel might be
thrown in from above, where the top of the kiln was level with the
field, and the burnt quicklime drawn out below and shovelled into a
cart that would convey it by the road to whatever field was thought
to require such a dressing.

But fuel became scarce, and when the trees had vanished, then sea
coal was introduced. Thereupon the farmers found it more convenient
to purchase quicklime at the kiln mouth near the chalk quarry, than
to cart the chalk and burn it themselves.

The private kilns were accordingly abandoned and allowed to fall to
ruin. Some were prudently filled in with earth and sand, but this
was exceptional. The majority were allowed to crumble in slowly;
and at the present day such abandoned kilns may be found on all
sides, in various stages of decay.

Into such a kiln, that had not been filled in, Jonas had fallen,
when he stepped backwards, unconscious of its existence.

Polly Colpus had followed her father, but kept in the rear, alarmed,
and dreading a ghastly sight. The farmer bent with hands on his
knees over the hole. Samuel knelt.

"Have you got him?" asked Colpus.

"Lend a hand," called Thomas from below, and with the assistance of
those above the body of Jonas Kink was lifted on to the bank.

"He's dead," said the farmer.

Then Mehetabel laughed.

The three men and Polly Colpus turned and looked at her with
estrangement.

They did not understand that there was neither mockery nor frivolity
in the laugh, that it proceeded involuntarily from the sudden
relaxation of overstrained nerves. At the moment Mehe