But with it all Soldier ever delighted to spend his nights at Holme and his Sundays at Powle Moor. I soon found he wanted none of my company. He had eyes only for Faith. He would talk to Faith by the hour of the singular virtues and the unparalleled learning of poor John, and that was a theme Faith never wearied of. What a saint, what a hero, what a philosopher they made of him between them! I only hope Jack believed half of what he said: else, there was a heavy account scoring against him somewhere. We were all very happy during those months of summer and early autumn, lulled in a false security. We might have known that sooner or later the authorities were bound to get the information for which they never ceased to seek. In the middle of October it was rumoured in the market that George Mellor and Ben Walker had been arrested by Justice Radcliffe, but after a few hours detention had been released for lack of evidence. I breathed freely after this, and itched to go to George and hear all he had to tell. But I had to bite my thumb and wait, for, apart altogether from the coolness between George and me, it would never have done to be seen in his company just then. Still it was something to know that the police could make out no case against him and Walker, and we all felt that was more than a little in our favour. Then, like a bolt from the blue, came a piece of news in the "Leeds Mercury." Mr. Webster was the first to tell us of it, for we did not, at Holme, see the daily paper till after Mr. Mellor the schoolmaster had done with it, he and my father joining at the cost of it. I have the paper still before me as I write, tho' it is now yellow with age and hangs together very loosely and it is worn through at the creases. I may as well copy out what Mr. Webster read to us, and you may judge for yourself what a flustration it threw us into: "A man has been taken up and examined by that indefatigable magistrate, Joseph Radcliffe, Esq., and has given the most complete and satisfactory evidence of the murder of Mr. Horsfall. The villains accused have been frequently examined before."--I never heard of but once--"but have always been discharged for want of sufficient evidence. The man charged behaved with the greatest effrontery till he saw the informer, when he changed colour and gasped for breath. When he came out of the room after hearing, the informer's evidence, he exclaimed 'Damn that fellow, he has done me.' It appears that this man and another have been the chief in all the disgraceful transactions that have occurred in this part of the country, especially at Rawfolds. This will lead to many more apprehensions."