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He wished, therefore, now to be the first to tell her.

With the aid of Morris-the kind farmer-he walked to the little gate, and through the little bit of front garden, still hearing for a moment or two no sound.

Then he heard the door open hurriedly, and stretching out his hand as if he were indeed a blind man, called out

'Margaret!'

'Rees Thomas! Hurt! Oh, mother, mother! Come! Come! Quick!'

Thou hast but to thank God with me, Margaret, for His mercies and for His chastisement. Be not afraid.

All will be well!'

So saying, he shook his friend by the hand, said a few words, and hurriedly wished him good-bye. Then he felt for Margaret's hand, and guided by this-all trembling as he felt it was passed over the threshold, and shut the door after him, which was not again to be opened for him to go forth to work for many a day.

CHAPTER XXIII.

NEW HOPES AND FEARS.

EVER thoughtful of others, and feeling a special interest in and love for the boy, Rees Thomas's last words to the farmer had been to ask him to go back again to the mine, and do for David and his mother what he had done for him.

Morris found the boy just out of the doctor's hands; who pooh-poohed the idea of anything serious, said he would be all right again in a few days, and tried to make David laugh by saying to him he had been only winning his spurs after the old knightly idea, a little modernised in the mode of appliance.

David grew cheerful and animated on the way home. He highly appreciated the conveyance, and the cushions that protected his weary frame and his burned shoulder, and he luxuriated in the sense of the great relief from pain he enjoyed.

But these things, after all, did not make up the whole or even the most essential part of David's change of feeling. Something much more sweet was acting on his wounded spirit as a precious balm. He had not, after all, been such a coward.

Or, if he had, people didn't know it, and they did know what he had said to his father.

Already he had heard his father's men talking of it, and looking at him, while he was waiting for the doctor to dress his wound; and he had not quite known whether he ought to be ashamed or proud-ashamed they should think so much better of him than, on the whole, he deserved-proud that they were not mistaken, at all events, in the matter they talked of.

Some days have passed, and have brought a change over David. He is nearly well in body; but, as he improves in that respect, he suffers proportionally in mind. Each day, each night, each meal, reminds him how soon the work in the mine must begin again. And ever the thought of it grows more and more one of utter disgust.

Dimly, vaguely, the thought steals in upon him now and then, 'Can he not run away, and earn his livelihood in his own manner, how and where he pleases? Why not? Other boys have done this and succeeded, and have become great men. Why not he?'

But when he begins in thought to realise the idea, to trace his course among strangers, to whom he could be no other than poor boys were about his own neighbourhood to the people who lived there, some of whom he had seen in rags, and picking out of dust heaps by the street side morsels of carrot, lumps of stale bread, parings of apples and potatoes when in his ignorance of the world at large he tried to understand it, and was driven for means of com

parison to his own limited experience, he shrank back in affright, and found even the mine a shelter, and his father a friend.

In the evening when Israel came home (the accident already sufficiently cared for, and forgotten), his hands and pockets full of papers-plans, accounts, estimates, &c.

-David was able not only to say the thing he had resolved on, but so to say it that Israel was even more impressed with the manner than with the matter-a most uncommon result.

He looked at the lad's pale but still bright face steadily. The blue frank eyes looked back with no sign of shrinking or furtiveness, and then Israel held out his hand, grasped David's little one warmly, and said

I shall be proud of thee yet, lad!' and went away without another word, as if the matter were done with for some years to come.

A recollection of something brought him back.

'What's that the doctor says about the burns being where some injury had happened before? He looked at me, as if he thought I had given you some cruel flogging. Did I?'

'No, father!' responded David, passing his hand over his face, to conceal how it had suddenly flushed to the hue of scarlet.

'Well?' said Israel impatiently, after a pause, and wondering what the boy's change of colour and his behaviour might mean.

David in those few moments was in an agony of doubt and irresolution. Should he lie? And then what lie would do to satisfy a man like his father? Coward! That word again confronted him. The truth should out. The affair was so long ago that no harm could happen if he did tell.

Such were the thoughts that swept in rapid sequence through David's brain in those few seconds of time that passed while Israel waited for his answer. And then in broken, almost incoherent language, he told the story of the horsewhipping.

Then for the first time in his life did David see how his father could be moved.

The stony insensibility of his features changed into a fixed expression that was fearful. His lips visibly whitened

with rage.

He walked slowly away in dead silence, and stood by the window looking out.

He came back, and made David tell the story a second time, which he did much more intelligibly; as Israel had got enough out of the first narrative to guide him in the method.

Then he called in his wife; who, busy in the kitchen preparing some little delicacy for David which Israel was not to know of, remained ignorant of the discovery.

Seeing the look on his face, she dropped in her fright the floury knife she had held in her hand, and stood as one appalled, conscious of a coming and fearful revelation, yet unable even to guess at its nature.

'Did you know of this-?'-he paused as if unwilling to use the right word, yet too proud to disguise the matter of it by weaker ones, this horsewhipping of David?'

Whether David feared his mother's weakness, the usual vice by which the victim tries to evade the harshness of the oppressor, and saw it could only make matters worse, as discovery was certain; or whether it was simply the desire to speak for her, as she seemed unable to speak for herself, he at all events called out hurriedly

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'Father, I didn't intend to tell anybody, because '-he paused a little as if confused; because I was so ashamed, and because'-there he paused again.

'Because?' repeated Israel, in his most dangerous tone and mood.

'Because I thought it better to bear it in silence, than make mischief; but I wasn't man enough to keep it from mother, and-and I was obliged to have something done to

'Take off his bandages!' cried Israel, harshly, interrupting the boy.

They were taken off, and Israel was able to see the

marks still remaining of the severe cuts received from Mr. Griffith Williams's whip.

6

Ah, that will do! Wrap him up again. I was afraid there might be no sufficient signs left. How long is it since?'

David told him, and Israel reckoned up the days, and looked most vindictively at his wife, that she should, by keeping him in ignorance, have left it almost a matter of doubt whether he could obtain what he intended if possible to exact-aye, even if necessary at the price of all he owned in the world-redress.

He went upstairs to the bed-room, and they could hear his footsteps going towards a closet, where he kept many private things he valued.

David and his mother looked at one another with increasing alarm, but said nothing, and listened intently.

Not a sound could they hear, and that fact struck them as unusual, portentous, as if Israel were meditating something so serious, that even he went out of his way to study how best to keep his movements and gestures unknown to those below.

Nothing more alarming than that fact, if it were true, could well happen to the two listeners.

At last they heard him moving again freely as before, and then he came down, and went out and left them.

'Oh mother, mother!' cried David, after an effectual attempt to restrain his tongue. If he has been to fetch his revolver, the one Mr. Jehoshaphat gave him when he used to go to the Bank! Do go up and see!'

Mrs. Mort went, found the cupboard locked, but remembered it had been only accidentally left open. No conclusion either way, therefore, could be drawn. And this satisfied Mrs. Mort for the time. But not so David, who

again cried out,

'Oh mother, he is going to the Farm; he will kill her father!'

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