were looking over the hedge into the marsh. Nothing was to be seen but the low brown tent, and the heap of little fish. Neither man, woman, nor boy appeared when their names were shouted forth.

“Oh! My best stockings!” said Ailwin, half crying.

“You have saved your cherry-brandy, my woman, that is certain,” observed one of Gool’s men.

“I shall never have any pleasure in it,” sighed the maid. “I shall never enjoy it on account of its reminding me how yon woman has fooled me.”

“Then we will save you that pain,” said the man. “If you will oblige us with it to-day we won’t leave any to pain you in the winter.”

“For shame,” cried Oliver, “when you know she has lost her stockings and her cloak already! And all out of kindness! I would not drink a drop of her cherry-brandy, I am sure.”

“Then you shall, Oliver, for saying so, and taking my part,” said Ailwin. “I am not going to give it to anyone else that has not the ague; some people may be assured of that.”

“If I thought there was any cherry-brandy for me when I came back,” said the man, throwing a stone down to try the nature of the bog-ground beneath, “I would get below there, and try what I could find. I might lay hold of a linsey-woolsey cloak somewhere in the bog.”

“You can never catch the Redfurns, I doubt,” said Ailwin. “What was it they said to you, Oliver, as they were going off?”

“They laughed at me for not being able to catch eels, and asked how I thought I should catch them. They said when I could decoy wild-fowl, I might set a trap for the Redfurns. But it does not follow that that is all true because they said it. I don’t see but they might be caught if there was anyone to do us justice afterwards. That’s the worst part of it, father says.”

“There’s father!” cried Mildred, as the crack of a whip was heard. All started off, as if to see who could carry bad news fastest. All arrived in the yard together, except Ailwin, who turned back to take up George, as he roared at being left behind.

“We must want a wise head or two among us,” said the vexed miller. “If we were as sharp as these times require, we surely could not be at the mercy of folk we should scorn to be like. We must give more heed and see what is to be done.”

“Rather late for that, neighbour, when here is the stock you were grinding and grinding for a week, all gone to plaster,” said one of Gool’s men.

“That is what I say,” replied the miller, contemplating the waste; “but it may be better late than not at all.”

Mrs Linacre was more affected than her husband by what had happened. When she came home, poor Mildred’s fortitude had just given way, and she was crying over the body of her dear white hen. This caused Ailwin’s eyes to fill at the thought of her stockings and cloak, so that the family faces looked cheerless enough.

“We deserve it all,” said Mrs Linacre, “for leaving our place and our children to the care of Gool’s men, or of anybody but ourselves. I will go no more to the spring. I have been out of my duty; and we may be thankful that we have been no further punished.”

As she spoke a few tears started. Her tears were so rare, that the children looked in dismay at their father.

He gently declared that the more injury they suffered from the country-people the more they needed all the earnings they could make. They must cling to the means of an honest maintenance, and not throw away such an employment as hers. He would not leave the children again while the Redfurns were in the neighbourhood. He would not have left them to-day, to serve anyone but the pastor; nor to serve even him, if he had not thought he had bespoken sufficient protection. Nothing should take him from home, or his eye off the children, to-morrow, she might depend upon it.

Mrs Linacre said that if she must go she should take a heavy heart with her. This was, she feared, but the first of a fresh series of attacks. If so, what might not they look for next? However, she only asked to be found in her duty. If her husband desired her to go, she would go; but she should count over the hours of the day sadly enough.

Oliver ventured to bring up an old subject. He said what he most wanted was to have earned money enough to get a watch. He was sure he could hide it so that Roger should never guess he had one; and it would be such a comfort to know exactly how the time was going, and when to look for his mother home, instead of having to guess, in cloudy weather, the hour of the day, and to argue the matter with Ailwin, who was always wrong about that particular thing.

His father smiled mournfully, as he observed, that he hoped Oliver would never so want bread as to leave off longing for anything made of gold or silver.