Many had now stripped off their coats and shirts, and gleaming ribs and shoulders, black faces and hairy chests, flitted and mingled in the red glare fantastically. The first cask of ale was finished, and as they became drunk each man vented his joy in the howl that liked him best. The counterchange of ruddy light on leaping bodies was restless; shadows streamed away into the darkness; and men wreathed their arms about one another, and danced and wrestled as the fires burned furiously. Some were for setting the carcases on to roast at once; but Mish Murgatroyd barred the furnace door with a crowbar, seized a man who approached it in his sinewy arms, and they rolled over together in black moulder’s sand, while Mish gnashed his teeth, for all it was but horseplay. Monjoy, looking down on them from the edge of the cutting, murmured, “Satan himself won’t be able to hold them in an hour.” Somebody touched him on the shoulder. He turned, and saw James Eastwood. Surprised, he fell a pace back. “Why, I didn’t think this mumming was much to your taste,” he said, and Eastwood drew him by the shirt sleeve. “Come where we can talk,” he said; “I’ve come to see you.” They passed above the furnaces, and descended the hill where the Slack turns towards Brotherton Bog. They put the shoulder of the hill between themselves and the hubbub, and the moon, at its last quarter, appeared low over the moor, and showed the little creeping miasmic vapours that curled over the surface of the dark morass. Again Eastwood took Monjoy’s sleeve. “Tell me where Ellah is,” he said abruptly. “Eh?” said Monjoy. “You didn’t expect to find him here, did you?” “Don’t waste words. He left the ‘Fullers’ two days ago, and he isn’t in Wadsworth.” Monjoy’s arms were folded and his fingers were moving lightly on his big biceps. They were suddenly arrested in their movement, and his brow tightened suddenly into a concentrated knot. “Are you sure, James?” he said slowly; and from beyond the hummock there came a fresh burst of laughter. Eastwood made no reply. “Did I hear you right? You say he’s gone?” “Yes.... I see you know naught about it. Then tell me how he came crippled?” One of Monjoy’s hands was making little plucking movements at his lip, and suddenly he turned and walked a few yards towards the Bog. Soon, “Eh?” he said mechanically over his shoulder, “At my hands, James, at my hands;” and he resumed his walk. Eastwood looked at the ground at his feet, and by and by Monjoy approached him again. “You’re quite--quite sure that’s----?” he faltered, and without waiting for an answer he began to walk again. He had put away quickly the solution that had leaped instantaneously into his mind. He did not dare to ask for that of the flockmaster. Another noisy peal of laughter came from behind the hill; and suddenly Monjoy felt such a shiver pass over him as they say is caused by the fall of a footstep over the place that is to be your grave.