They walked a few hundred yards farther on, and sat for a quarter of an hour to learn how the poor old lady's jyntes was uncommon painful just now, thanky, and that she hadn't seen them since before Christmas, and that it had been the mildest Christmas she had knowed this sixty year; and then the old lady sent her visitors on their return walk, with the cheerful announcement that a green Christmas "allers made a full churchyard, my dears," which well she knowed it to be true. "Oh, what a dreadful old woman, Julie," cried Cynthia, merrily. "Poor old thing! but how well she is for eighty." "No troubles but her jyntes to harass her," laughed Cynthia. "How long will it be before we meet anybody?" A much shorter time than they either of them anticipated, for as they turned a bend in the road, two rough-looking men who had been leaning against a gate came towards them, making no movement to let them pass, but staring offensively. "Don't be frightened, Julie," whispered Cynthia, with spirit, "I'm not afraid." She walked on boldly, and darted such an imperious look at the lesser of the two men, that he slunk aside to let her pass, but the other, Jock Morrison, stood his ground. He stared in a peculiar, half-smiling way at Julia, making her shrink aside, and following her up, as, turning pale, her lips parting, and with dilated eyes, she felt as it were fascinated by his gaze, shuddering the next moment as he exclaimed with a coarse laugh-- "Bob, old matey, I mean to have this girl." PART ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. AT KILBY FARM. "Well--well--well--well," said Mrs Portlock, folding her apron full of pleats, as Luke Ross sat talking to her for a while, and ended by telling her his intentions for the future. "Barrister, eh? Well, of all the trades I ever heard tell of--but can barristers make a living?" "Yes, and a good one, too," said Luke, laughing. "Then you are not going to take to the school after all?" "No, I have quite altered my plans, and I hope all will turn out for the best." "Ah, I hope so, I'm sure," said Mrs Portlock, smoothing down her black silk dress, and then arranging a necklace of oblong amber beads, which she wore on market-days, one which bore a striking resemblance to a string of bilious beetles. "But what does your father say?" "I have not told him my plans yet, for they have only been made since the governor's meeting." "Well, Luke Ross," said Mrs Portlock, in a resigned fashion, "I'm sure I don't wish you any harm." "I'm sure you do not," he said, laughing. "Indeed I do not," she continued: "but, for my part, I think you had a great deal better have kept to your father's trade. Such a business as that is not to be picked up every day. But there, I suppose you know best." "Of course he does," said the Churchwarden, who heard the latter part of her sentence. "You let Luke Ross alone for that. His head's screwed on the right way."