And then it occurred to Ran for the first time that by some strange oversight no carriage had been ordered by him or his attorney to come from the Hall to meet them at the station. There were several vehicles around the place, but all seemed to be engaged by other parties. Our friends walked together to the Tawny Lion Tavern, where Ran ordered refreshment and inquired for a conveyance to Haymore. The Tawny Lion boasted but one—a large carryall drawn by two stout horses—but that was then engaged, and would not be available to our travelers for perhaps two hours. These were passed by Ran and Judy, after they had finished their meal, in sauntering about the quaint, old-fashioned town and making acquaintance with its streets and houses. “Here’s where we shall have to come to do our country shopping, you know, darling,” said Ran; “for I have been told that there is but one general shop at Haymore, where, though they keep everything to sell, from a second-hand pulpit to a soup dish, you can get nothing very good.” “But I shall encourage the home trade, and deal at Haymore all the same,” replied Judy. Meanwhile Mr. Will Walling spent his time of waiting over the fire in the inn parlor, with a bottle of port wine and a stack of cigars on the table beside him. And Longman, accompanied by his shadows, Dandy and Mike, walked out in the direction of the Old Heath Farm to make inquiries about his mother, and, naturally, the nearer he came to the scene of his boyhood’s home the keener and the more intense became his anxiety. It had never seemed to him that his buxom, healthy, hearty mother could have sickened and died; nor had it seemed more than, barely possible that she might have married again. He rather hoped to find her where he had left her five years before, living on the farm. Still, as he turned from the Chuxton highroad and went into a narrow lane, overhung by the branches of the leafless trees that grew on each side the path leading to the farmhouse, all the dread possibilities of life seemed to threaten him ahead. He could not now speak of his feelings. He hurried on. The giant was as weak as a child when he passed through the farm yard and went up to the house. A man was approaching from another direction. Longman leaned against the side of the house for support as he faltered forth a question. “Eh?” demanded the farmer, looking fixedly at the stranger, as if he suspected him of being top heavy through too much drink. “Is it the Widow Longman ye’re asking about? No, she dun not bide here now. She hasn’t been here for these five years past.” Another faint, almost inaudible question from the weak giant, which the farmer had to bend his quick, sharp ear to hear at all. “Is she living, do you arsk? Oh, ay, she’s living good enough. She’s keeping house for the parson at the rectory, Haymore, about ten miles to the norrard of this.”