"Please, John Middleton, will you carry me this heavy jug just over the bridge?" It was the very first time I had ever been spoken to gently. I was ordered here and there by my father and his rough companions; I was abused and cursed by them if I failed in doing what they wished; if I succeeded, there came no expression of thanks or gratitude. I was informed of facts necessary for me to know. But the gentle words of request or entreaty were aforetime unknown to me, and now their tones fell on my ear soft and sweet as a distant peal of bells. I wished that I knew how to speak properly in reply; but though we were of the same standing, as regarded worldly circumstances, there was some mighty difference between us, which made me unable to speak in her language of soft words and modest entreaty. There was nothing for me but to take up the pitcher in a kind of gruff, shy silence, and carry it over the bridge as she had asked me. When I gave it her back again, she thanked me, and tripped away, leaving me, wordless, gazing after her, like an awkward lout, as I was. I knew well enough who she was. She was grandchild to Eleanor Hadfield, an aged woman, who was reputed as a witch by my father and his set, for no other reason, that I can make out, than her scorn, dignity, and fearlessness of rancor. It was true we often met her in the gray dawn of the morning when we returned from poaching, and my father used to curse her, under his breath, for a witch, such as were burnt, long ago, on Pendle Hill top; but I had heard that Eleanor was a skillful sick-nurse, and ever ready to give her services to those who were ill; and I believe that she had been sitting up through the night (the night that we had been spending under the wild heavens, in deeds as wild), with those who were appointed to die. Nelly was her orphan grand-daughter; her little hand-maiden; her treasure; her one ewe-lamb. Many and many a day have I watched by the brook-side, hoping that some happy gust of wind, coming with opportune bluster down the hollow of the dale, might make me necessary once more to her. I longed to hear her speak to me again. I said the words she had used to myself, trying to catch her tone; but the chance never came again. I do not know that she ever knew how I watched for her there. I found out that she went to school, and nothing would serve me but that I must go too. My father scoffed at me; I did not care. I knew naught of what reading was, nor that it was likely that I should be laughed at; I, a great hulking lad of seventeen or upward, for going to learn my A, B, C, in the midst of a crowd of little ones. I stood just this way in my mind: Nelly was at school; it was the best place for seeing her, and hearing her voice again. Therefore I would go too. My father talked, and swore, and threatened, but I stood to it. He said I should leave school weary of it in a month. I swore a deeper oath than I like to remember,