from her, like a bird that sees the snare being set. 'Why, yes,' he roared. 'To be sure, I'll step in some night, and bring Cilla with me -and bring Cilla with me. Ye'll have David the Smith back in Garth, too, with the spring.'

'I'm glad of that,' said the widow. There's that little job still waiting to be done-and it's rankled a bit, as I told ye—and now I can give him a piece o' my mind.'

6

Humph!' growled Hirst, as he moved down the street. Good-night to ye. I'd thought ye might like to see David back for his own sake, not for what he can do for ye.'

As he neared the forge a broad shaft of crimson lay across the blue-white, moonlit road-a vivid splash of colour that flickered in long, waving lines.

'So Billy's at play. Never knew such a lad for playing early and playing late. He'll be fain o' my news, I reckon,' thought Hirst, as he moved to the smithy door and stood looking in.

Dan Foster's lad was busy at the bellows, and Billy the Fool was standing at his anvil. He looked a huge, heroic figure as he brought the hammer down, his arms thick and brawny, his head throwing a fantastic shadow of itself on the wall behind. A cheerful scent came from within the forge; an odour made up of red-hot iron, and fire-heat, and hoof-parings from recent shoeing. The yeoman would know that smell of Garth forge, bringing memories of the old days with it, if you set him blindfold at the door after years of absence. The contrast, too, between the nipping frost one side the threshold, the royal warmth on the other, was pleasant, like a spring day found unexpectedly at Christmas-tide.

'Billy, my lad, David the Smith comes back with the spring,' said Hirst, his natural voice striking easily across the uproar of the bellows and the anvil.

Fool Billy, as befitted one who was short of wit, went on with the work in hand and finished it before he turned about. He was none of your wise fellows who drop a tool at the first hint of gossip, and afterwards return reluctantly to the unfinished job.

He's

'Te-he! There'll be terrible pranksome doings when David the Smith comes back,' said Billy, leaning on his hammer. like the swallows, in a manner o' speaking, this same man David; off for the winter, and home when Garth has got nicely warmed up again. When will he be coming, like? The first swallow's nest I mind last year began a-building just when the ousel hatched out her clutch of five up in Winnybrook Wood. Seems a long while to

wait,' he added, glancing at the ribbon of firelit snow across the highway.

'Oh, 'twill soon pass. Time does for busy folk,' said Hirst, warming his hands at the smithy fire, and thinking, with some compunction of the daughter he had left at Good Intent to have her cry out, like.'

Billy was silent for a while, his massiveness and air of detachment from the world suggesting some impersonal figure of destiny. Then suddenly, as his way was, he returned to extreme childishness.

'David will be bringing a lile pipeful o' baccy; and, if he can no way find a match, I've got the fire to light it at right soon.'

The yeoman laughed-rattling the horseshoes on the wallsand handed his pouch to Billy. When the clay pipe was loaded and the quiet puffs of smoke were going up to the blackened rafterbeams, Billy laughed foolishly.

Seems I'm in a terrible puzzlement, like a hen with an addled

'Are ye now-and why?'

'Well, soon as ever David comes back with the swallows, blessed if he won't want a daft body to go working all at bellows-blowing. Look at Dan Foster's lad, and say by yond same token if bellowsblowing isn't work.'

Foster's lad was wiping the sweat from his forehead, and he grinned at them both with friendly acquiescence in Billy's logic. 'That's soon put right,' said Hirst. What's work i' winter, Billy, is play when spring comes in.'

The Fool smoked the matter over with tranquil disregard of time. I believe ye,' he said at last. Have watched the birds to some purpose, I. They'll be hopping i' search o' crumbs all wintertime, as lean as a bare-boughed tree; but see 'em in spring-see 'em in spring, wi' the gloss on their wings, and their bonnie, bright eyes, and their calls when they're all by way o' mating-ye'd scarce know which was work, or which was play, to these same scatter-wits. So David's coming swallow-fashion home, is he, to make me play at bellows-blowing? I'll be glad to see the man's right, proper face again, I own.'

Cilla was still sitting by the hearth at Good Intent, and was still thinking of David's letter, of the postscript which she understood so well. She was aware of a childish wonder that the message should have reached her with all its freshness after so long a seavoyage. The man's unswerving loyalty, his dumb acceptance

of any treatment she might give him, brought a pang of real suffering to Priscilla. She had no weight of remorse to battle with, as Gaunt had when he thought of the moorland grave; and yet, in spite of logic, she blamed herself. Over-strung as she was to-night, she could picture David's return, the pathetic hopefulness that his new power of talking about foreign lands would bring him nearer to his desire, his ignorance that there was any bond between herself and Reuben Gaunt.

'But, then, there is none,' she would finish weakly, and would find little comfort in the thought, and the tears would fill her eyes once more, because David was so constant and she so weak to help him.

Cilla of the Good Intent stood in the middle of her own wintertide, just as Garth village did; and the spring, as Billy the Fool had said, would seem long in coming.

(To be concluded.)

THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

JUNE 1909.

THE PALADIN

AS BEHELD BY A WOMAN OF temperament.

BY HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE QUEST BEGINS AGAIN.

In certain parts of China, when things go inexplicably wrong, the villagers take out their Joss and trounce him. He is given to understand that he has not behaved himself, and must mend his ways. Perhaps there are times in all our lives when the little god of Self is similarly treated. We take him out, see him as he is, an unbeautiful Joss, and thwack him.

After reading Esther's letter our paladin suffered acutely, but for the moment, indeed for several hours, he blamed not the Joss within but the fickle Jill without. With her he was quite furious, because she had knocked him off his perch. He might have called for bell and candle and Book and cursed her grievously, had he not been educated at Eton.

He woke, next day, in less tempestuous mood, to find the sun shining and the wind transformed into a gentle breeze. Accordingly he ordered coffee to be brought to him under the chestnut tree, and there he saw Esther's hat-a lamentable object, sodden, discoloured, limp, and shapeless. He remembered that he had thought of trampling it underfoot, and lo! the elements had Copyright, 1909, by H. A. Vachell, in the United States of America. VOL. XXVI.—NO. 156, N.S.

46

destroyed it. Our unconscious humourist, gazing at the dilapidated object, decided that the elements had taken an unwarrantable liberty. He laid down the hat with a sigh, and thought sentimentally of burying it, cremation occurring to him as the more obvious and satisfactory rite.

After breakfast he smoked a pipe. Then Babette appeared to ask the question not answered before. Would Monsieur want her services during the winter?' Monsieur replied in the negative, and then and there gave notice to both the girls. Monsieur was leaving the chalet as soon as possible, not to return.

He smoked another pipe, thinking hard. Babette had upset him. She recalled to his mind the talk with Esther. Was it possible that Esther had inferred an intention on his part of leaving her to spend the winter alone? That, of course, would be so like a woman. Because he had not been in the mood to prattle about domestic details she had leapt to an incredible conclusion. Heavens! It was likely that she had misapprehended his motives. Want of trust! There you are! Yes-there you are, up to your neck in the fons et origo mali. Our paladin remembered a few Latin tags. One had to use 'em sparingly nowadays, but sometimes they came in handy. Want of trust! She thought, poor little dear, that she did not love him. Of course she loved him; he had read love in her hazel eyes; but she didn't trust him.

Magnanimously he blamed himself. Yes; he had been selfish. He took out his Joss and spanked it—not too cruelly hard, but as a wise mother spanks a beloved child whose thoughtlessness may have caused serious disaster. He, with his wider experience, ought to have foreseen fog ahead. But, candidly, you never knew where you were with women.

He smoked a third pipe. He was beginning to feel fairly comfortable. The sun floated upward, warming delightfully the air, chilled by the night's rain; down in the willows near the river the chaffinches and tits and wrens were discussing their approaching journey south. They knew that winter was coming, but not to the place where they were going. What lessons an intelligent mind can learn from birds and beasts! The word 'winter' had terrified his own little brown bird. Well, well, she and he would migrate together.

He smoked a fourth pipe, which, admittedly, was one too many and a deliberate slap in the face to Babette, preparing a special plat' pour ce pauvre garçon abandonné! By this time