thought William. That had been more waste; for the broad lands had long lain in the clutch of one who did no good to man or beast, who lived the selfish life of a recluse, while all round him men and women were starving, and the farms going to rack and ruin. Now, no doubt, the place would be bought by some rich man from Bristol, and Alberstone parish would see better days.

Before the new year came William heard the bell tolling for the funeral, and on the next market-day learned that the Miser had left no will. The news did not interest him. He never noticed that he himself was a centre of observation, pointed out by man to man with nods, winks and expressive gestures. Evans, the pettifogging little lawyer, who tried, by means of a big brass plate and unwearied attendance in the Police Court, to push himself into the place in the public confidence held by the older firm of Dawson and Gregg, tracked him up the street, ostensibly to ask his opinion of a hog he thought of buying; but William took no notice of his proffered hand, and answered, with a flash of local wisdom, that a Welshman and a hog were cousins, and he wouldn't interfere in a family matter.

A few days afterward he received a letter from Dawson and Gregg, asking for the favour of an immediate call on business of the utmost importance. It was the time of the birth of the early lambs, and William was busy day and night with the ewes. He had no time to spare to lawyers; and having lighted his pipe with the letter, he thought no more of the subject. But the letter was followed by a second, the second by a third, all pressing the importance of the business; and at last, being obliged to attend the February market, William bethought himself of the lawyers. Finding

their business to hand, he picked his way through the pushing, lowing herds of cattle, that, guarded by small urchins with long sticks, stood prisoned against the very walls of the houses on that side of the marketplace. His left hand stroked the nose of a terrified cow, as he knocked with his right at the door of Messrs. Dawson and Gregg's office.

The office-boy saluted him with the graceful sweep of the arm that has given way in less homely places to the curt touching of the forehead; a clerk who was running down the stairs shook his hand and called him "Mr. Thursfield;" and the five or six young men who sat behind the wooden rail in the outer office contended for the honour of bringing him a chair and THE TIMES, of hanging in the hall hist hat and crook, and hoping that the cold weather did not affect his health. Half-shy and half-contemptuous, the old shepherd looked from one to the other, wondering vaguely why Wood William, the common butt of their humour, had suddenly become Mr. Thursfield, the object of attentive deference.

All was explained when, after a few moments' waiting, he was shown into the senior partner's room. The grey-bearded, fussy little man rose to shake him by the hand; and then, after much hemming and hawing and aimless turning over of documents, came the great announcement.

"Our Mr. Gregg," said the senior partner, "has been investigating the Thursfield pedigree, and has collected, with the exception of one trifling fact, all the evidence necessary to prove that you are the heir to the Alberstone Court property, the late owner of which died intestate and a bachelor." Wood William gasped. "I wish you had been able to call upon us a little sooner, for there is another claimant, for whom-er-we do not act, Jacob

Thursfield, whom I understand to be your first cousin, that is, the son of your father's younger brother. His solicitor, Mr. Evans, has been very busy since Christmas, and we anticipate some little opposition to our view. The property has been sadly neglected, and is heavily encumbered. The late

owner, far from being a miser, was a man of most extravagant tastes. But we calculate that the income is sufficient to yield some five or six hundred a year, after paying the mortgage interests."

"And it be mine?"

"Let Jacob 'ave un, I says."

"But, my dear sir, it isn't mine to give to whom I please; it's purely a question of law. If you are the heir, the legal estate is vested in you, whether you will or no."

Brought suddenly face to face with a new and astounding creature, a man who actually did not want a good property, the lawyer was bewildered. He stammered and stuttered, and was on the point of launching forth into further argument, when a clerk tapped at the door. "Mr. Jacob Thursfield to see you, sir."

"Good heavens!" cried Mr. Dawson, more bewildered than ever. He would have refused to see the man, had not Jacob already shouldered his way into the room. "Ello, William,"

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he cried with offensive jocularity, and the whole room was filled with the smell of spirits and tobacco. "I've a-caught 'ee at un, 'ave I? Evans, 'e told I not to speak to old Dawson 'ere, nor Gregg, on no account. But I seed 'ee slink in 'ere, and made up my mind to come in and tell 'ee as it bain't no good. That there property be mine."

Sir, this is an unwarrantable intrusion ! cried Mr. Dawson, but "'Old your

Jacob cut him short. tongue, old ram! I do know well enough what you and William be shut up 'ere together for; and I tell 'ee it bain't no good. My father were the elder brother, not William's."

"What?" cried the lawyer. "That's the very point at issue. What proof have you of your statement?"

"Proof? Ask Evans; 'e do know ; 'e've a-got 'eaps o' proof. There be two old 'omen at least as be ready to swear to un."

"Tsh!" said Mr. Dawson impatiently; and turning to William he went on. "It is an unfortunate fact, Mr. Thursfield, that the parish registers of Chipping Olds, which alone could prove the point we want, were destroyed by fire in 1837. But I shall want a good deal more evidence than the statement of your cousin or his two old women. Now, have you no records, no documents of any kind, to support your claim?"

Wood William looked to the floor, to the fireplace, to the ceiling, finally at Mr. Dawson. He had opened his lips, as if about to speak, when Jacob burst forth again. "Not 'e! Look at un! my father were the older, and there be no sayin' nay to that."

William rose slowly from his chair, and moved towards the door. "Jacob be right," said he, with his fingers on the handle.

dence, he had never expected so easy a victory.

“Mr. Thursfield,” cried the lawyer, but too late. William had left the room, taken down his hat and crook from the peg in the hall, and turned away up the street; and the clerk who was sent after him reported that he would not return.

He went straight back to his old spot on the down, and leaning on his crook looked across towards Alberstone. The vague thoughts that drifted through his mind summed themselves at last in a feeling which translated into the language of a conscious thinker, would be a half-hearted apology for having lost sight of what is good in the power that rules men's lives. There might be much waste, much cruelty, in Nature; but he could not think her wholly bad, when she had put into his hands so great a chance of doing good to poor Betsy. It had all been very easy, very simple. A word had made a rich man of his cousin, a rich woman (as he thought) of his cousin's wife; and thus the difficulty of Betsy's pride was overcome. She would never know the truth about the Alberstone inherit

ance.

When evening fell, he trudged slowly home, and took down from its shelf his great family Bible. There, entered on the fly-leaf by some long-dead Rector of Chipping Olds, were particulars of the marriage of William Thursfield and Anne Symes in 1798, of the birth of William Thursfield in 1800, followed by that of Eli Thursfield, the father of Jacob, in 1803. Their nameless mounds lay near the great yew-tree in Chipping Olds' churchyard. Wood William, then more nobly wood than ever, tore the leaf carefully from the book, and pushed it in among the embers of the fire. When the flame of the burning paper had died down,

he smiled. mured. "It be thine for good and all, then, now.”

“There, Bet!” he mur

Of all that went on in Marlbury during the next few days he knew nothing. Dawson and Gregg remonstrated with Evans, Evans insulted Dawson and Gregg; two old women made statutory declarations before Evans, and were compensated with travelling-expenses" at £5 each for any fear of the law of perjury. The story of William's submission leaked out. His name was tossed from mouth to mouth; he was sealed as wilfully and incurably wood, without the pluck to make a fair fight for his claim. But he dwelt alone upon the heights, and heard none of it. Three letters came from Dawson and Gregg: William burned them all; and the firm gave him up in disgust. Jacob entered upon the possession, and Evans upon the management, of the Alberstone property; and far away upon the opposite heights William's heart swelled daily with joy that a good deed had been done.

Jacob soon transformed himself into his own notion of a fine gentleman. His stables were full of horses, and his house of strange guests. He drank, rioted, and gambled from Bristol to Gloucester; and no one heard a word of his wife and only child. The farms fell into greater decay; the tenants left one by one, and the misery of Alberstone parish was doubled. Meanwhile, little Evans was at work. All the mortgages were transferred to his name, and his hold upon the property grew stronger year by year. More and more loans (with ever-rising rates of interest) were necessary to keep pace with Jacob's extravagance ; and when, at last, Evans heard that his client had been trying to borrow money of a Bristol solicitor, he thought it time to strike.

All through the three terrible years of Jacob's downfall, Wood William on his distant downs had watched the smoke from the chimneys and the gaudy flag that floated day after day on the tower, and had smiled often to himself, thinking that now, at last, Betsy was happy in the enjoyment of wealth and comfort. No one took the trouble to enlighten him; he lived in his fool's paradise undisturbed.

One morning, however, he saw that no flag was run up on the tower of the Court, no smoke came from the chimneys. Jacob and Betsy were on a visit, no doubt; at the sea-side, perhaps at Aust, or even the New Passage, like rich Bristol folks. They would have taken Tom with them, of course; he must be quite a big lad by now. Poor Betsy! Life would have gone hard with her, but for the Miser's money.

An urchin came whistling across the downs, and handed William a scrap of paper.

"What be this, boy?" he asked. "And who sent 'ee with un?"

"Sent from Alberstone Court with un. You be wanted, Mr. Thursfield."

William opened the note, and looked at it. "Read un out, boy," he said. "I can't see without my glasses."

The urchin read in a loud sing-song voice: "Come and see me to-day. Jacob's gone, and I'm near dead. Betsy."

"Boy, William, what boy?" William stared blankly in response, and the bailiff turned away with a muttered Wood! Betsy, then!" rang the shepherd's voice, now timid and querulous. "Where be my Betsy?"

Up-stairs, William. My old 'oman 'ave just gone to get 'er a sup o' broth, not but what 'er be too far gone to take un."

The shepherd stumbled up the broad Italian staircase, and entered the first room he found in the gallery. There, upon a great old four-post bedstead, lay Betsy Thursfield. She turned a wan and pain-racked face towards him. "William!" she moaned. "Thank 'eaven thou be come!"

"All alone, Bet?" he cried, still haunted with the idea that she was rich. "Where be thy servants, then?"

"Gone, William, gone with the rest of un all! There's been nothing but going for the last two year. First of all, 'twere my boy as died, just as I'd a-got fondest of un. Since

then I'ain't noticed much, but one by one things 'ave been going, the 'orses, the servants, the money, and now Jacob 'isself. I've been lonesome, William, sad and lonesome ever since my boy died."

"But thou've a-been 'appy, Bet? Tell us thou've a-been 'appy!"

The dying woman looked round the faded luxury of the great room and sighed. "So long as there were money, I 'ad plenty; 'e didn't stint I o' that. But I've 'ad no love, William, no comfort nor kind words since my boy died." He fell on his knees at her bedside, with bowed shoulders and trembling lips. Taking her hands in his, he tried to chafe them back to warmth. "I were a foolish wench, William, though none so bad as folks did say. I throwed 'ee over for a worser man, and I've a-paid for un. We all of us 'as to pay, but mine was a cruel long price."

"What about I, then?" cried the old shepherd, stung into open revolt by failure. "What 'ave I done to pay for? I done all for the best, and this be what comes of un!"

But there was no time then for

questioning Fate or Nature. All his life afterwards he bore the air of a man listening for an answer that never came; but that moment was not one for thought. Betsy was sinking rapidly. She died quietly in his arms about half an hour after he had entered the room.

Wood William laid her reverently back, and closed her eyes. Her poor pinched face was smiling, as if she were glad that her debt, at last, was paid. But William stood erect, and with outstretched arms hurled his indictment against Nature. "Waste, waste!" he cried. "She and I and the money wasted! All waste!"

He lived for many years after Betsy's death. Day after day he would stand upon the open down,

erect and motionless, like a monument to his own dead dreams, with his mind lost, for the most part, in a cheerful abstraction. But now and then, as he caught sight of the smoke from the chimneys of Alberstone Court, the country-seat of a Bristol draper, his old eyes would be troubled, and his snowy head shake sadly.

HAROLD CHILD.