go after his father seemed every day more certain of fulfilment. Luke was active enough in setting traps for birds, and digging out rabbits, and even in setting a snare for a hare, which came by night to browse in the pretty large garden of cabbage and potatoes that surrounded the Reckoning House. And he was pretty successful in noosing hares and unearthing rabbits, but neither his grand-parents nor Tom Smith would let them come into their houses, lest they should get into trouble, and because that would have wholly confirmed the lad in his wild habits. Luke got through his days somehow, and in the evenings he used to go up and play with the lads at the Marlpool, and here he found plenty of people ready to take in slyly the fruits of his poaching, and give him a share of the feast at night. Old Luke meantime went in his mealy garb and with his care-marked and powdered face, to his mill and back, and many an hour of sad cogitation he had, as his clappers knocked and his sacks filled, on what was to become of this wild lad. Many a tear poor old Beckey shed over her knitting, and many a shake of his head gave Tom Smith, as he heard Beckey and Peggy talk of him.

One day Luke had found his way to the common, beyond the Marlpool, where the shaft of a new coal-pit was sinking. Nobody was to be seen on the ground about the pit as he approached, but when he came up and looked down, he saw a man at work in the bottom. The pit was sunk some thirty yards or so, and he recognised a man of the Marlpool, named Dick Welland, busy with his pick and shovel. It was evident that his butty or mate had gone away somewhere temporarily, probably for beer. There stood the windlass, with the rope depending, and the box at the bottom filled, ready to be drawn up at the man's return. Till then Dick Welland was a prisoner below.

Luke lay down on his stomach, and looked down the shaft. He called to the collier, and drew his attention to a brick which he held in his hand. "Dick," said he, "I've a good mind to drop a brick on thee!" The man in great terror cried out to him not to do it; for he had no means of escaping from the blow, which must kill him on the spot. There was yet no horizontal working under which he might run and take shelter. Luke was delighted with the opportunity of frightening the man, and laughing, still held the brick over the pit mouth, saying, "Now, now! it's coming. Look out!" The pitman was in agonies of terror; he entreated, he shouted, he moved from side to side of the pit, but still Luke, with the true spirit of a tyrant and an inquisitor, held aloft the brick, and cried, "I'll drop it, Dick. Now, it is coming!" This scene had continued for a quarter of an hour, during which time the man had endured ages of agony and terror, when Dick perceived the other man coming over the common with a little keg of beer: he quietly arose, and disappeared amongst the furze and broom.

It was time for Luke Barnicott to be going. No sooner did the man below perceive his butty above, than turning the earth out of the "cauf" or box, he sprang into it, and called to him to draw him up with all his might. Once on the bank, he cast a rapid glance round, and telling his mate in a few hurried words what had happened, they both dashed in amongst the furze bushes in quest of the culprit. They ran fiercely hither and thither; they doubled and crossed and beat over the whole common, as a sportsman beats for his game. But their game was nowhere to be found. Luke, aware of the vengeance that he had provoked, had securely hidden himself somewhere. His pursuers could discover him nowhere. They returned to the Marlpool, and related the atrocious deed. The whole place arose in a fury. All men and women vowed to pay the young tormentor off. Dick Welland's wife, a tall, stout amazon of a woman, the head taller than any woman of the whole country round; strong, good-looking, and accustomed to walk with the stout strides and the air of a virago, vowed merciless retribution on the culprit if ever she laid hands on him. Tarring and feathering are a trifle to what was promised him; he was to be dipped head foremost into the Marlpool, and held to within an inch of his life. He was to be flogged and cuffed, and pinched and nettled, and, in short, the whole blood of the Marlpool boiled and seethed in vengeful anticipation of horrors to be inflicted upon him.

But "no catch me, no have me!" A week went by and no Luke Barnicott re-appeared. Old Luke Barnicott went to his mill and back as usual, but with a much sadder and darker air; poor old Beckey's eyes were red with weeping, and her frame seemed all at once withered and grown shaky. The incensed colliers and the redoubtable virago, Doll Welland, his wife, had been seen watching the Reckoning House, night after night, suspecting that the culprit must steal there in the dark to get something to live on, for he could not live on the air. But Tom Smith solemnly assured inquirers that no Luke had been seen near home since the day when he flourished the brick over the pit-mouth; and that the old folks were miserable about him. How Luke lived or where, no one could guess; but those who knew him best imagined that he managed to keep soul and body together by nuts, and beech-nuts, and pig-nuts, which last he was very expert in digging out of pastures. Besides, farmer Palethorpe of the Youlgreaves, not far off, complained that his cows were heard running about one or two nights, and he believed somebody had been trying to milk them. "That's Barnicott!" said Welland, and he and his gigantic Doll carefully hunted over the woods and copses near Youlgreaves farm, but to no purpose. About a week after Luke's disappearance, and when his grandfather and grandmother began to think that he had gone quite off to seek his fortune, some boys who had been nutting in the Badger Dingles, near Youlgreaves, came racing home out of breath, saying they had either seen a ghost or Luke Barnicott, for he seemed to start out of the ground amongst the bushes, gave an unearthly shriek, and darted away through bush and "breer," and was gone. Poor old Beckey Barnicott swooned away, for she said she was sure the poor lad had been "clammed" to death in the woods, because he dared not come home; but Welland took another view of the matter, and starting off to the Badger Dingles, he and his strapping wife hunted the thickets again well over. They were near giving up their search when it occurred to them to examine an old hovel in a field up above the Dingles, and there they found a heap of fern in which somebody had evidently lain for some time, and in the very last night.

Sure that Luke was lurking somewhere not far off, they renewed their search with fresh eagerness. They hunted the dingles all over again, and just when they came to the end they saw something swing itself over a gate and disappear. The Marlpool boys would have run off, thinking it the ghost again, but Welland rushed forward, leapt the gate, and saw Luke Barnicott sure enough racing at full speed to gain the dense Hillmarton spruce plantations. Welland and wife gave chase. According to their account Luke plunged into the plantation before they could come up with him, but being hot on his trail they beat up the plantations, and again started him. In the afternoon the people of the Marlpool saw an extraordinary sight. It was Luke, ragged and haggard, without his hat, and his light brown hair flying in the wind, running for his life over the common, and Welland and his wife panting after him as if half tired down, for they were people approaching their fiftieth year, though hale and active, and stimulated by their vengeance to run to the last. Luke was evidently aiming for the Reckoning House. All Marlpool was out to watch the race. There was loud shoutings, and cries of "Stop him!" and by others, "Nay, fair play! let the lad run." Old Luke Barnicott came out on his mill-stairs, and cried with a voice which was never forgotten by those who heard it to the day of their death, "Murderers! let the child alone."

Old Luke came down the mill-stairs like a frantic man and