of the fine old tree.

"I don't quite like this," said John, meditatively, as his quick eye
swept down the course of the river, with the houses and wharves that
abutted on it, all along one bank. "Did you ever see the waters thus
high before?"

"Yes, I believe I have; nobody minds it at Norton Bury; it is only the
sudden thaw, my father says, and he ought to know, for he has had
plenty of experience, the tan-yard being so close to the river."

"I was thinking of that; but come, it's getting cold."

He took me safe home, and we parted cordially--nay, affectionately--at
my own door.

"When will you come again, David?"

"When your father sends me."

And I felt that HE felt that our intercourse was always to be limited
to this. Nothing clandestine, nothing obtrusive, was possible, even
for friendship's sake, to John Halifax.

My father came in late that evening; he looked tired and uneasy, and
instead of going to bed, though it was after nine o'clock, sat down to
his pipe in the chimney-corner.

"Is the river rising still, father? Will it do any harm to the
tan-yard?"

"What dost thee know about the tan-yard!"

"Only John Halifax was saying--"

"John Halifax had better hold his tongue."

I held mine.

My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night. I
think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long
meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.

"Where didst thee go out to-day, Phineas?--thee and the lad I sent."

"To the Mythe:" and I told him the incident that had happened there.
He listened without reply.

"Wasn't it a brave thing to do, father?"

"Um!"--and a few meditative puffs. "Phineas, the lad thee hast such a
hankering after is a good lad--a very decent lad--if thee doesn't make
too much of him. Remember; he is but my servant; thee'rt my son--my
only son."

Alas! my poor father, it was hard enough for him to have such an "only
son" as I.

In the middle of the night--or else to me, lying awake, it seemed
so--there was a knocking at our hall door. I slept on the ground flat,
in a little room opposite the parlour. Ere I could well collect my
thoughts, I saw my father pass, fully dressed, with a light in his
hand. And, man of peace though he was, I was very sure I saw in the
other--something which always lay near his strong box, at his bed's
head at night. Because ten years ago a large sum had been stolen from
him, and the burglar had