"Well, it's th' same thing, an' aw'm no scholar to crack on. An' little use learnin' is, it seems to me, if folk cannot keep theirsen out o' such mullocks as this. It's a mercy 'Siah's away, say I, for if they can they'll put it on to th' poor folk, an' let their betters go scot free, tho' its them as puts 'em up to it." I did not sleep a wink that night. Horsfall shot dead! A man done to death in broad daylight by a shot from an assassin lurking behind a wall! It comes home to you when you know the man, when you know well the very spot on which he fell, when you can see in your mind's eye the murderers crouching behind the stones of a wall on which you have rested in many a homeward walk. How much more does it touch you when, as you ponder this picture of these crouched and waiting men, a face starts forth, with murder in its eyes, and the face is that of one you have loved and leaned on! I could not be certain, but I felt the hand of George Mellor was in this awful deed, and every instinct of manliness, of fair play, of humanity, rose up within, me and cried shame on the bloody deed. I remembered what George had said the night Horsfall had struck him with his riding-whip. I knew how his proud spirit must have chafed at our repulse at Rawfolds. But murder! oh it is an ugly thing. To stand up in fair fight, to pit strength against strength, craft against craft, to stake limb for limb, life for life, why, that, who shall cry fie upon. But to steal upon your foe in the dark, to stab in the back, to smite him unawares, to speed him unsummoned and unfit to judgment--there is no cause so righteous as to redeem an act so dastard. And that George, so frank, so full of sunshine and gay candour, should do this cowardly deed, passed comprehension. And yet who of all the others would dare? And if the thing had to be done, was George one to leave to others what he shrank from doing himself? It was a night of torture. I looked back on the night I had passed in the barn after the fight at Rawfolds, and it seemed by comparison a night of restful bliss. Once, about midnight, I thought I heard the rattle of a pebble against the window pane. I stole softly out of bed and raised the window. But all was still around, and not far away in the little village a widow mourned a murdered husband and anguished hearts cried to heaven for just revenge. After breakfast my mother set off to the village in quest of news. Work was out of the question. Mary busied herself about the house, and I tried to fix my mind upon straightening the books, which, after a fashion, it was my duty to keep. Alas! the invoices to be made out were few and slight, and an hour or so a week was enough for all the accountancy our business called for. To me, thus engaged, tho' with wandering thoughts, came Martha, care upon her brow and secrecy in her gait. "There's som'b'dy in th' shippen wants thee, Ben. Oh! dunnot let Mary know. He doesn't want any but thee to know he's here."