IT WAS nigh ten o'clock of the Saturday night when I slipped on my clothes, went on tiptoe across the bedroom floor into the little room where 'Siah slept--how the rafters creaked!--and roused him from his deep sleep. 'Siah sat up with a yawn that would have awakened any but those who slept the heavy slumbers born of honest toil and pure air, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, yawned again, thrust, a stockinged leg from under the blankets, muttered something that did not sound like a blessing, donned his trousers and his smock, and followed me, with a clumsy attempt at care, down the stairs. In the kitchen we shod our feet, 'Siah in clogs, over which he drew a pair of socks, myself with thick hob-nailed boots. The dog rose from the hearth, stretched himself with a yawn, arched his back, and then lay down again with his jaw upon his fore-paw and eyes watchful from under shaggy brows. My mother had not kept her threat to lock me in o' nights, in fact I am not sure she could have done, had her will been ever so good. 'Siah opened the door, motioned the dog back to its place, and we turned out into the yard, doubled the house side, and strode off down the hill. We met not a soul nor spoke a word till we came to Kitchen Fold, and here, by the Black Bull, we came upon Soldier Jack. He gave us a quiet greeting, almost in a whisper. He handed an axe to 'Siah, and a huge sledge-hammer to myself. He showed us a pistol that he himself was to handle, and a small canvass bag of powder and ball. He fondled the weapon lovingly, and as we walked briskly along towards Huddersfield, kept on cocking it at the startled birds that sprung twittering from the hedges. Of Watch and Ward we saw no sign. There was half a moon in the sky, which was o'ercast by scudding clouds behind which she sailed, diving down as into troughs of ink, then showing a horn and riding triumphantly to the clear again, like a ship of fire in the billows of the sea. There was no rain, but the wind moaned, and save for its moan and the fall of our feet and the bark of a cur as we passed the scattered houses, and now and then a word from Jack, all was very still. We did not dally in the town, for the order was that each man should make his own way to the Dumb Steeple, a sign well known to all of us, hard by the Three Nuns, on the road side, near the old Convent of Kirklees. As we neared the spot we saw other figures moving furtively and quickly in the same direction. Some were dressed in smocks, and all had their faces part concealed, either by a mask or by a 'kerchief drawn across the lower face. One gaunt being strode on before us dressed in woman's skirts; but a pair of men's trousers, that showed at every step, and a manly stride were in ill keeping with the skirt. When we got near the Steeple I put on my mask and 'Siah and Jack theirs. From all sides, across fields, down bye-ways, from Roberttown, from Hightown, men, singly and in small groups, were gathering.