The latest-sent messenger should have been back early in the morning; he did not appear. He had not appeared by midday, and by that time Horwick was crowded with Back o’ th’ Mooiners. The afternoon passed, and the evening. York might have been the Indies for all the communication there was. Night fell. The Back o’ th’ Mooiners would have dragged out Eastwood Ellah, but Arthur Monjoy with difficulty prevented it, and there was an uproar in the “Fullers’ Arms.” The next day was a Sunday, and the better sort betook themselves to church in the most extraordinary fashion, seeking their Lord (as men do) only in the hour of their need of Him. Perhaps, too, they thought of another service that, for all they knew, was being held thirty-eight miles away as pigeons fly, and of two men in a pew by themselves, and by their sides that which, by the rising of the morrow’s sun.... But no! Not that! Why, did not months sometimes elapse between sentence (to admit even so much as that) and the consummation of it? And had not juries ceased to convict for such offences? And why should the trial have been over all in one day? And was there not reprieve?... Not very many from Back o’ th’ Mooin went to church, but for four days not a hand had been lifted to open up the coal-workings, nor to forward the labour at the furnaces. That night a fourth rider was despatched for York. He alone of the four returned, and that was not until the Monday midnight. A furious clattering of hoofs in the night was heard down the Fullergate, and every man who heard it sprang from his bed. The sound ceased at the “Fullers’ Arms.” In two minutes a crowd thronged the street, and the man fell from the saddle into their arms. Lights were brought, and he was carried into the inn, and there, lying extended on a bench, he gasped it out in broken sentences, the news, or some of it.