me to call him he was lying half uncovered in a wild
confusion of scattered bed-clothes; and his arms and body were jerking
as a dog's that dreams. She saw a sort of convulsion pinch and pucker
his face; then he made some inarticulate sounds--as it were a frantic
negation; and then the noise of his own cry awakened him. He looked
wildly round and lifted his hands as though he expected to find them
full.

"Where is it? Where is it? The bag of money? I won't--I can't--Where is
it, I say?"

"I wish I knawed, lovey. Dream-gawld, I'm afeared. You've bin lying
cold, an' that do allus breed bad thoughts in sleep. 'Tis late; I done
breakfast an hour ago. An' Okehampton day, tu. Coach'll be along in
twenty minutes."

He sighed and dragged the clothes over himself.

"You'd best go to-day, mother. The ride will do you good, and I have
plenty to fill my time at home."

Mrs. Hicks brightened perceptibly before this prospect. She was a
little, faded woman, with a brown face and red-rimmed, weak eyes, washed
by many years of sorrow to the palest nondescript colour. She crept
through the world with no ambition but to die out of the poorhouse, no
prayer but a petition that the parish might not bury her at the end, no
joy save in her son. Life at best was a dreary business for her, and an
occasional trip to Okehampton represented about the only brightness that
ever crept into it. Now she bustled off full of excitement to get the
honey, and, having put on a withered bonnet and black shawl, presently
stood and waited for the omnibus.

Her son dwelt with his thoughts that day, and for him there was no peace
or pleasure. Full twenty times he determined to visit Newtake at once
and have it out with Will; but his infirmity of purpose acted like a
drag upon this resolution, and his pride also contributed a force
against it. Once he actually started, and climbed up Middledown to reach
the Moor beyond; then he changed his mind again as new fires of enmity
swept through it. His wrongs rankled black and bitter; and, faint under
them, he presently turned and went home shivering though the day was
hot.

CHAPTER VI

A SWARM OF BEES

Above Chagford rise those lofty outposts of Dartmoor, named respectively
Nattadown and Middledown. The first lies nearer to the village, and upon
its side, beneath a fir wood which crowns one spur, spread steep wastes
of fern and furze. This spot was a favourite one with Clement Hicks, and
a fortnight