some dreamy impulse, he took up a pebble, poised it for three instants, and threw it at the board.

The pebble was well aimed, and struck the wood before it sank down.

The man rose, turned round towards the phantom castle, took off his cap and bowed. Then he set his face to the mainland, and, while the mist thickened, walked on again.

The mist still grew deeper as he approached the low downs to which one end of the isthmus is bound. Here he struck into a high road that led over a hill to the town, which sleeps, eats, and drinks as calmly and quietly on its little gulf as though no foundered ships and no wrecked souls were within three thousand miles-not to speak of three.

From the gaol to the town is a walk of exactly three miles. Το travel, it is more than three thousand. The atmosphere of a Court still hung over the town-of a solid and comfortable Court, that treated the whole globe as if it were a scalene triangle drawn from Windsor to Cheltenham, from Cheltenham to Melmouth, and from Melmouth back to Windsor again, these three points becoming in turn the social headquarters of the British Empire. The Court was of the past, but the town still lived upon the after-flavour. There was the red brick house, now converted into sea-side lodgings for all the world and his wife, wherein the good king had, with a sea-side appetite, eaten his boiled leg of mutton like any farmer of the surrounding chalk hills; there, among the chalk hills themselves, on the far side of the gulf, lay a colossal figure of the good king on horseback-a landmark for leagues-cut out in white from the green turf, with a pig-tail twenty yards long, and the rest in proportion. There were the old and middle-aged men and women who, those in their middle age, these in their childhood, had seen, nay, had even conversed, with the good king. No-that dim and distant headland was no appanage of Melmouth. Melmouth was once a main gate, and was still a postern, into the best and most respectable of worlds.

It was still early; and, with the exception of him who had just entered this postern, no one was abroad. The bathing season was over, the shops had no cause to open, and the bleak and gloomy morning had seemingly proved too much even for the few early risers that Melmouth might contain. The old fellow from without still plodded on slowly, with his eyes bent upon the ground, turned off from the broad and empty esplanade, as the natives called their sea-wall, and then, leaving the town behind as he had left the gaol,

struck into a straight high road that led up towards the chalk downs, at right angles with the shore.

He passed nothing remarkable but a church and a police-constable. The latter bade him a friendly good morning, as to one whom he might come to know better before long. The close-cropped hair and shaven face meant a great deal in that part of the world, and the now dusty boots, also, were of a make that was extremely well known. The man just touched his cap in an absent manner without bending his neck, but, as if suddenly remembering himself, turned his slight salute into a low bow, and passed on.

When he reached the first milestone, however, he saw a really glorious sight-nothing less than the sudden lifting of the veil of mist, and the transformation of the hanging ball of dull fire into the sun, the ruler of the day. The sea behind now rose up like a high silver wall: the grey hills grew green, and the sky broke out into patches of light blue. The man turned his bent shoulders to the first real sunbeam, and warmed them as if at a fire. Not even a felon could be expected to watch the lifting of an autumn sea-mist at morning without a conscious expansion of eye and heart. The no longer imprisoned breeze both fills the lungs and braces the soul.

It also makes men ready for breakfast. Unhappily, however, it does not always make breakfast ready for men.

The road still lay up hill, though gently: and the higher the wanderer ascended, the higher and more brightly shone the sun out of that pale grey-blue which is dearer to most of us than the most cloudless turquoise of Italian skies. If there is anything in this variegated world better than such an October forenoon in a spot where the sea's good-morning kiss to the shore is not too far off to be echoed, then there is something better than best. The year is never so fresh and young as when he is just thinking of growing old -it is the aroma of happiness past, indeed, but imperishable-the breath of strength outliving all foolish Aprils of half tears and half smiles, and no melancholy presage of unreal decay, that lies in the majestic pathos of falling leaves. It is the season of the chase, of the vintage, of the safe and gathered harvest, of free breath, of pure air, of well-ordered nights and days, of empty hopes forgotten, of fertile hopes fulfilled and renewed. It is ploughing time-the beginning of new hope and new work, as well as the fulfilment of the old the continuance of strength after success, and the renewal of courage after failure. He was a foolish poet, whoever he was, that first called autumn sad because, forsooth, the east winds of spring have left off biting, the dog-days have left off scorching, and the

1

frosts of winter have not yet come. Was life made for roses and nightingales? Or was it made for men to grow serene of heart and strong of limb ?

But what has this to do with a discharged felon who paid reverence to a chance policeman? He had been in his true place on the headland he would have been a blot on the whitewash of Melmouth had he thought fit to stay there; he must, with equal reason, be held an out-of-place stain upon the chalk downs: a greater eye-sore even than the straggling equestrian portrait of royalty. He was prematurely old, he was ugly, he was penniless, he was presumably ignorant, and he must be taken to be in soul as well as in body out of harmony with all things fresh and clean and pure.

He passed a second mile-stone, a third, and a fourth, always plodding on at the same slow but steady pace, looking askance at the carters and labourers whom he passed less frequently than the mile-stones, until he reached a white five-barred gate that opened into a neat farmyard. He leaned his arms and chin on the topmost bar, and breakfasted at leisure on a comfortable, homely smell of malt and straw. For it was brewing time also-and for that reason, too, it is unfair to call mid-autumn a season of sadness. After such satisfaction as this light and easily digested meal might afford, and with some hesitation, he pushed open the gate, entered the yard, skirted a duck pond, crossed a kitchen garden, and reached the open green door of a red-brick house-one of those creeperless farmhouses that seem to live in a perpetual stare at their own neatness.

He was about to tap, when—

"What's your business here, my good man ?" asked a stout and florid dame, who left her potato-peeling in the kitchen and came to the door.

"Is this Farmer Holt's, madam?" he asked humbly, cap in hand.

"Farmer Holt's? Bless me, Farmer Holt is dead and gone this ever so many year. 'Tis Mr. Holmes's farm; we've been here this four Mickle's mass. You won't find Farmer Holt far out of Gressford Churchyard."

"Pardon my ignorance, madam. I have fallen a little behind the times. I am speaking to Mrs. Holmes ?"

Something in the stranger's unprovincial accent must have struck her, and she looked him over curiously.

"I'm Miss Holmes. Do you want anything? If it's about the brewing, you'll find my brother in the Up-Field."

"The Up-Field? Thank you, ma'am. I remember the way. I

used to be hereabout in Farmer Holt's time. Yes, I will see Mr. Holmes, if you please. Good morning, ma'am."

He put on his cap, raised it again, and walked from the door, while Miss Holmes stood and watched him till he was clear of the garden wicket. Then she shook her head.

"Just do off the chain from Jowler, Betty," she called out, "and give him the run of the yard. I'm half-minded that old tramp knows the place a bit too well, and I don't hold with them Frenchified ways. And I'll just count over the chicken before I go on with the paring."

Farmer Holmes, on his way back for some bread and cheese from the Up-Field, was a farmer of the thin and wiry breed, which is, in fact, far more common than the conventional John Bull pattern. He looked about sixty years old, was grey-haired, hard and withered, but as strong as whale-bone. He wore a large brown overcoat with huge flap pockets and enormous white buttons, gaiters, and an old white hat, and he carried a green switch from the hedge under his

arm.

The old tramp took off his cap again.

"Mr. Holmes, sir?" he asked politely.

"That be my name, sure enough-Isaac Holmes, farmer and maltster: all the parish knows I. What do you want with me?"

"I want to ask you, sir, to grant me, as the greatest favour, what every man-so they say-has a right to claim. You are a farmer and maltster, and therefore have capital. I am a labourer, and have hands, as you see. I want you to allow me to use my hands in easing you of some of your capital."

Mr. Holmes thrust his hands to the bottom of his pockets, and stood with his legs slightly astride.

"You want to ease I?"

"In plain English, Mr. Holmes, I am out of work—I want work— I'm looking for work; and as you are the first employer of labour I have met with in my day's journey, so you that I may not lose a chance-are the first to whom I apply. You might do worse. I am something of a jack-of-all-trades, without, I trust, being master of I will be content with the current rate of wages-I think they were something like eight shillings a week for a single man in Farmer Holt's time-and will put my hand to anything you please, from keeping accounts to carting manure. If you have nothing else for me to do, you can't deny that I'm exceptionally qualified for a scarecrow."

none.

Mr. Holmes gave a bewildered stare.

"A labourer! You be a rum sort of a labourer, you be." "I own it, sir. I am a rum sort of a labourer. That shall be considered in my hire. You shall only give me seven and sixpence every Saturday night instead of eight shillings, in consideration of my being rum."

"Hold out they hands o' yourn," said the farmer, sharply.

The tramp held out both his hands. They showed ample signs of rough work with pick and spade, it is true, but were otherwise a little too long and fine for one whose ambition was to guide Farmer Holmes's plough.

"There, sir: I am waiting to have my fortune told," he said; "which is it to be, oakum or the spade?"

All at once the farmer gave a long, low whistle, and slapped his thigh.

I

Hoy! Will'am!" he shouted out to a labourer who was burning weeds hard by: "Hoy, Will'am! Come hither with thy flail. knows thee, Master Jack-of-all-trades, and master o' one, any wayI knows thee: I ben't going to have no fine gentlemen rick-burners on my place, nor no Captain Swings. I knows thee, Master Jack Gaol-Crow they be marks o' Weyport picks, they be, on thy pickers and stealers. I knows thee thee'rt the chap I and eleven other men found guilty at 'sizes for writing names as weren't theirn. I won't have Isaac Holmes written, as is good for five hundred pound; nor my ricks burnt, as is worth five hundred to the back o' they. Thee'lt burn me out for spite, wilt thee, Master Jack? Be off, and if thee'rt skulking round about here again, I'll warn the constable. Find thy danged heels, and Will'am, take thy flail and loose Jowler at 'n."

The felon smiled, sadly but grimly.

Pray do not trouble Mr. Jowler, Mr. William. I am gone. But may I ask who is your landlord, Mr. Holmes?"

"My landlord? One as could hang thee as soon as look at thee, if I have thee up to sessions-'tis the Earl of Wendale, if thee wan'st to know. Will'am, loose Jowler, and take thy flail."

The

The felon bowed again, and returned to the high road. days were still freshly remembered when the mysterious name of the ever invisible Captain Swing, the omnipresent and Briarean archrick-burner, used to rob hard-working farmers of their ease by day and of their repose by night and to turn day-labourers into patrols of night watchmen. To be a stranger in a country parish was still to be regarded with suspicion: and it cannot be denied that Farmer Holmes's suspicion was justified, combined as it was with private reason for