Monjoy and Eastwood strode along the Causeway to Wadsworth. The morning star had set; the day had broken a clear saffron; and the singing of the mounting larks could be heard far away. The bells of an approaching pack jangled, the packmen gave them good morning, and the jangling died away behind them. The sun came up in splendour, and a regal glory bathed the heather. As Big Monjoy removed his cap of foxskin his great russet head seemed to burn, and he turned to Eastwood. “What do you think the next will be, James?” he asked quietly, and, Eastwood making no reply, they continued to stride forward past the black-topped guide-stones. CHAPTER X. THE HOME-COMING. Even a parson (the cynical said) could not remain for ever in ignorance of that which was so bruited about that little else was spoken of, and the Wadsworth parson awoke to the knowledge at last. The way in which he showed his distress was by a public preaching. More of those concerned would have heard him had he preached in a tavern instead of in a church (on which also the cynical had something to say); but among the sprinkling into whose hearts his words sank was Cicely Monjoy, come over for the Sunday to see her father. She heard the earnest and broken sentences in which he addressed himself directly to the women, and his supplication and promise of God’s pardon; and he did not hesitate to speak even of the two men in York, now on the eve of another trial for their lives. At that many of the women sobbed, and Pim o’ Cuddy’s voice seemed to strangle as he read out the hymn. Just before the Benediction the parson prayed especially for Northrop and Haigh; and Cicely, knowing well that after the service he would seek her out, made speed away, a painful heaviness at her heart. The sermon came at the right time to make a stir in Horwick. The new trial was in everybody’s mouth, and (though they did not speak much of this) the disappearance, not of Eastwood Ellah only, but since several days of Jeremy Cope himself, was at the back of everybody’s thought. From John Raikes, far away in York, there came not so much as a word to allay their anxiety. It was rumoured that John Emmason had paid another call on Parker of Ford, and that Parker also was away from home and his clerk unable or unwilling to inform Emmason of his whereabouts. As the day appointed for the trial approached, the anxiety increased; and some even waited on the Wadsworth parson, who, as a public man, might have news that others lacked. Then one morning Eastwood Ellah was seen to issue from the “Fullers’ Arms” as if he had never left the house.