The inn at Buckstones stands, or then stood, almost alone on the road from Outlane to Manchester. All around were desolate reaches of moorland, with here and there patches won by hard toil from the waste and enclosed by dry walling whose solidity bespoke the rich abundance of good stone and the little worth of human labour. There were no neighbours to make custom for the inn. The coach never stopped there. An occasional wayfarer, or holiday makers from the town, at times would call there, but mine host of the Buck would have fared badly but for his pigs and poultry. It was a little inn, remote, unaccustomed, unobserved, and only those would chose it as a meeting place whose business was one that shunned the open day and the eye of man. I put the letter carefully in my breast pocket, putting aside Mary's questioning words and ignoring Mary's questioning looks as best I could. And at this, after a while, Mary choose to take offence, tossing her head, and surmising that folk who had letters they could not show to their own cousins were up to no good. I was at the Buck punctual to my time. The night was pitch dark. There was neither moon nor stars to light one along the road, and the road was bad enough in broad noon. A feeble light shone from the low window of the inn. The outer door was shut, and did not yield to my push when I lifted the sneck. It was opened from within by George Mellor. "Yo're to time, Ben," he said in a low voice as he grasped my hand. "I knew tha' wouldn't fail us." "Who's us?" I asked. "Tha'll know soon enough. They're waitin' for us i' th' room upstairs--but come into th' snug an' have a glass o' ale. Tha looks breathed and flustered, an' as if tha'd seen a boggart on th' road. There's a chap inside aw want thee to know--he's a rare 'un. He's a better scholard nor other thee nor me, Ben, and aw'se warrant tha'll like him, when tha knows him." "Who is it, George?" "They call him Booth, John Booth, th' parson's son at Lowmoor." "Is he one on yo'?" I asked. "As close as th' heft to th' blade," replied George. And I breathed more freely, for John Booth I had seen many a time at Mr. Wright's, the saddler's, in Huddersfield; and I, though I had had no speech with him, had heard much of his great learning and sweet temper. He was not one to harm a fly. His father was, I knew, the Vicar at Lowmoor Church, and a master cropper to boot. Surely the son of a parson and of a finisher was engaged in no enterprise that need daunt my father's son.