were all a little afraid of the elder brother, had gone off to feast
upon the sweets, Jeph began with enquiries after Steadfast's back, and
he replied that it was mending fast, while Patience exclaimed at the
cruelty and wickedness of so using him.

"Why wouldn't he speak then?" said Jeph. "Yea or nay would have ended it
in a moment, but that's Stead's way. He looks like it now!" and he did,
elbows on knees, and chin on hands.

"Come now, Stead, thou canst speak to me! Was it all because Faithful
hauled thee about?"

"He did, and he had no call to," said Stead, surlily.

"Well, that's true, but I'm not hauling thee. Tell me, Stead, I mind now
that thou wast out with father that last day ere the Parson was taken
to receive his deserts. I don't believe that even thy churlishness
would have stood such blows if thou hadst known naught of the idolatrous
vessels, and couldst have saved thy skin by saying so! No answer. Why,
what have these malignants done for thee that thou shouldst hold by
them? Slain thy father! Burnt thine house! No fault of theirs that thou
art alive this day! Canst not speak?"

Jeph's temper giving way at the provocation, he forgot his conciliatory
intentions and seizing Stead by the collar shook him violently. Growler
almost broke his chain with rage, Patience screamed and flew to the
rescue, just as she had often done when they were all children together,
and Jeph threw his brother from him so that he fell on the root of a
tree, and lay for a moment or two still, then picked himself up again
evidently with pain, though he answered Patience cheerfully that it was
nought.

"Thou art enough to drive a man mad with thy surly silence," exclaimed
Jeph, whom this tussle had rendered much more like his old self, "and
after all, knowing that even though thou art not one of the holy ones,
thou wilt not tell a lie, it comes to the same thing. I know thou
wottest where these things are, and it is only thy sullen scruples that
hinder thee from speaking. Nevertheless, I shall leave no stone unturned
till I find them! For what is written 'Thou shalt break down their
altars.'"

"Jeph," said Stead, firmly. "You left home because of your grief and
rage at father's death. Would you have me break the solemn charge he
laid on me?"

"Father was a good man after his light," said Jeph, a little staggered,
"but that light was but darkness, and we to whom the day itself is
vouchsafed are not bound by a charge laid on