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"What was thy news?" "My news, old fellow?" “Ay, thy good news, Withun." "Why that Tom Thacker's better, Nick, and sends his love."

sped? Lift me a little-the I lost; oh, never, never, never breath hurts still-I want to be it found! . . . see thy eyes to tell me truly ... I canna see them, they be too wet. . . . Ay, well. So I must lie i' the church wi' the old ones and the great ones, I that be young and small; but, ha, ha! Withun! I shall a little cheat 'em! I shall escape 'em once in a twelvemonth, eh? I shall get my holy-day come each December, eh? I have thy word for that-my three good weeks to seek the owche

"Give him mine, Withun. Look to him kindly, Withun. Oh, Withun, lift me up..

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But there was nothing to lift. The ghost of Nicholas Cope slipped through my arms.

VIII.

Repassing the Cathedral, before I turned the angle of the East Wall I heard an anvil clinking in the night. "Catton's at some work," I thought. My hand thrust into my pocket closed on the fragments of the iron box whose contents Withun had carried to his grave. "To-morrow I will get this re-soldered." I came round the corner where Catton's forge once stood.

The cold wall only met me, the ring of the hammer fell silent,... but was it imagination that an old spare figure, with a face like puckered parchment, slid past me out of the shadows hugging a

secret object to its breast? . . . I turned my head and there was nothing.

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"God rest your soul, Hugh Withun," I said, "and let us be friends at last; for I too have found our boy's lost owche, and taken the guilt of its loss on my own shoulders for his dear sake."

That night in my room I added three words to the Latin script upon the parchment, and the tiny casket, which was soldered in my presence on the morrow, contained, besides the jewel, a plea for mercy on the souls of Hugh Withun, Nicholas Cope, and Thomas Thacker.

On the morning of the 28th I attended service in the Cathedral. It was against my nurse's wish, but my chill was abating, and this was to be my valediotion to Wel

IX.

chester. Nothing now detained me, and I meant to join my friends in Bridestow with as little delay as possible.

As I entered the doors I passed my old verger, and a

moment later heard him whisper to one behind me"Your gentleman still looks very bad."

"He's better than he was, Mr Withers," murmured a voice I knew, and glancing back I saw that Margaret Venn was following in my wake. She looked a scared apology, but I smiled and waited for her, and we took our seats together.

I could not fix my thoughts on the service. Concentration is difficult in certain periods of convalescence. Most of the time I sat with my hands over my eyes, thinking of Nick lying not far away, and wondering whether he found the sermon dull. The text, as being appropriate I suppose to the day, was "Suffer little children.. I hardly heard the words, but the voice of the preacher was of a wonderful sweetness.

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A soft hand touched my knee. I uncovered my eyes. Beside me sat a little girl, a charming child, rosy and smiling. I had not observed her before. Nor had I observed that the entire congregation was one of children, their eyes, alert and friendly beyond the wont of youngsters in church, all fixed upon the pulpit. No, there was one man among the flock, a lean old fellow, in a black robe, sitting in a far corner; and his eyes also burned upon the preacher. The children were dressed in a fashion familiar to me; I glanced down at my own long hose.... "Tom!"

"Hello, Marget !” "Doesna he look splendid!" Then I, too, turned to the pulpit, and there saw Nicholas Cope in all his bravery. He grinned across at me, and had ado, I knew, not to wave his hand.

66

... and lastly," said Nicholas Cope, "I tell ye this. Christ has a liking for fun and good sport and a laughing heart, A'll damn no boy for pure mischief, so it was pure mischief-for, fellows, mischief can be crooked too; and we all know, better than them that leathers us after the act, whether ours was the crooked sort or no. And, another thing, a chap must learn to take his own leatherings-ay, though he be a prince he must!-and to bear 'em wi' a good grace and not whimper, for 'twas up to him if a' chose to swallow the jam afore a' gulped down the powder, and don't ye forget it. It's cheek o' me to be up here talking morality at ye when ye all know me the worst truant o' the pack: I never could keep my mind o' my book when window was open and earth called... but God made the earth, and man only made the lesson, an' I don't believe He's angry wi' a chap for loving His work the better o' the two -He shouldna ha' made boys and ice to be in one season if He hadna wanted 'em to come together. May He forgive me my sins; I've had a jolly good time, and I canna think He grudged me.

For Christ's Self

was one time a child like us, and that's why A' keeps a smile for our mirth so well as a tear for our sorrow.

"Let us now sing the Carol o' the Cherry-Tree to the glory of the Virgin and her Childup wi' ye all, and lustily:

666 'Joseph was an old man

And an old man was he.""

Voices of children, a bright wave of them, flooded the Cathedral to the roof. But something checked my throat, and Nick, I could scarcely see for a swimming in my eyes. I only knew that he was looking fixedly upon me through all the singing, and that before the final verse he was descending from the pulpit and coming my way. Beside my seat he paused, and his voice rang in my ear like a bell heard in a mist:

"O I shall be as dead, Tom,

As the stones in the wall;
O the stones in the streets, Tom,
Shall mourn for me all.

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"Are you not coming? do you feel 80 bad, my dear?"

The congregation was almost dispersed. Margaret Venn and I alone kept our seats.

"In a few minutes, mother. No, I'm as right as rain — really. Trot home now; I'll be there soon to get my box strapped."

She left me; and I stepped along the empty grandeur of that place, once to touch in farewell the hand of Nicholas Cope, where he lay among the noble tombs of four of Mother Church's brightest gems, pearl in their midst.

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On my friend's estate in Bridestow there is a well reported to be bottomless. Soon after my arrival I demanded an introduction to it, and my hostess, full of welcome and commiseration, led the way.

"Too bad, you missed the best of the fun," she chattered. "You don't look very grand even now-I hope you didn't come on to us too soon-however, we'll nurse you round as fit as a fiddle for New Year and Twelfth-Night. And next year you must be sure and be here for Christmas."

X.

She

"Oh, come, now!" shook her head laughingly. "A prior engagement, I suppose?"

"Yes, a prior engagement."

"So likely, isn't it! Here's the well. You wouldn't believe how long it is before one hears the splash. Let's find a stone or something."

"This will do." I drew my hand from my pocket.

"What is it? (There! have you dropped it?) Nothing that matters, I hope. It's past recovery now till Judgment Day. Listen!"

Faint and far I heard the

"I'm afraid you mustn't splash. count on me."

ELEANOR FARJEON.

BACKWYNDS OF THE BLUE RIDGE.

MIDWAY in the Appalachian the stupendous dip are sublime, System that reaches nearly from the St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, where nature has run riot in her prodigality of chains and cross - chains of "dolorous mountain summit," there, where the corners of several States come together, stands the Blue Ridge, thrown up like a barrier at the back of the great Atlantic plain. Like its companion range, the Great Smokies, it takes its name from the atmospheric haze which ever ever bedims it when viewed from any distance. With an elevation of some four thousand feet, rising in some of its apices to over six thousand, it is the highest part of the North American continent east of the Rockies.

Climb the Blue Ridge from the plain by one of the "Gaps" which are found at intervals, and which are mostly rugged fissures formed by water erosion, with roadways precariously hung on to their sides, and you find that it is no ordinary mountain that you have ascended. There is no "go-down" on the farther side, but a vast billowy Hinterland, all once a forest, though now mostly cleared, but all still the very apotheosis of the unlevel. To get the fullest effect of the Ridge, and to carry away the deepest impression of it, one should approach it from behind. Seen from thence, the extent and the suddenness of

giving a suggestion of the world's rim or jumping-off place. After sojourning in that rude highland, with eye and mind wearied by its seemingly endless upheaval, one who for the first time emerges on the Blue Ridge crest, with its glorious expansive panorama spread out beneath, can scarce refrain from venting his feelings in a shout-the shout of the prisoner gaining liberty-the Thalassa-shout of the sea-hungry Greek again beholding his beloved element. Here at last to the everlasting hills is an end. In that haziness away beyond the terraced spurs and foothills, you feel and know instinctively there are flat country and macadam roads and railways and towns, and other things pertaining to a twentieth century civilisation.

Away from your feet, like a long unpirned thread, runs the road, winding down and ever down the mountain face, till, dwindling to the thinnest drawn fibre, it is lost from view in the far depths. The drive down this declivity is taken with caution brakes hard crammed on, and team well in hand. Even then, it is one that is pregnant with possibilities and big with thrills. The roadway, from the inner bank to the outer edge, has been closely gauged to the width of a vehicle, and the

leading to a suspicion that the
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have been
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against some young and inex-
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wheel-track runs persistently of alcohol are often noticeable, close to that unfenced, unkerbed outer edge where the ground drops away at a desperate angle into the tree-tops and the general landscape. Even the local teamster keeps the best part of one eye in that direction. The curious stranger glues both eyes there; while the extra-timid passenger keeps his averted, or with discreetly closed lids. In the light of day that roadway is out too décolleté to meet with his approval. A careful lookout has to be kept ahead for other vehicles, for only at certain points is it possible to pass. Many of the trees by the roadside have had slices chopped out of their trunks, indicating the severe wear and tear on brake-blocks and the necessity of frequently refacing them. Many of the Gap roads are kept up by toll levy, and their surfaces made good after rains, as they well need to be. Considering the amount of wheel traffic passing over these Gap roads, and the apparent risks, especially on many of the bends, accidents are amazingly few. The draught animals of the country have much to do with this, being particularly docile and free from skittish ways. When the catastrophe of a waggon somersaulting off the road brink has to be recorded, it is generally the case that the driver was neither a novice nor a stranger to the route. It is averred that among the wreckage of the outfit, fragments of bottleglass and a whiffed suggestion

Many parts of the Blue Ridge have long been notorious for the stilling which was carried on there, mostly on the illicit plan. Of late years the business was very brisk, so much of the surrounding country having "gone dry,' or adopted liquor - prohibitive legislation-and the less accessible clefts and corners of the Ridge were among the last places to be patrolled. Whisky made from maize, and brandy from apples, after the fashion of their forbears, were the fluids these distillers chiefly handled, and they could hardly conceive, in their crude casuistry, that their industry should be matter for anybody's or any government's interference. Their own production, high proof, hard and hot, was the one and only article to edify their home-trained palate, and they felt shy of more refined substitutes. Properly rectified and matured spirit was to them even as the Loch Katrine water, when first piped into the city of Glasgow, was to the old lady who had all her life been used to the Molendinar or some equally noisome local supply, and who characterised the new beverage as "puir fushionless stuff, wi' neither smell nor taste aboot it."

At the present time extreme vigilance is being exercised by

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