"What are you thinkin' on?" demanded Haworth. "It's a bad lookout, isn't it?" Mr. Briarley drew a step nearer the gig's side. He appeared somewhat pale, and spoke in a whisper. Muddled as he was, he had an idea or so left. "It'll be a bad lookout for him," he said. "Bless yo'! They'd tear him to pieces. They're in th' humor for it. They've been carryin' a grudge so long they're ready fur owt. They've nivver thowt mich o' him, though, but start 'em on that an' they wouldn't leave a shred o' it together--nor a shred o' him, eyther, if they got the chance." Haworth laughed again. "Wouldn't they?" he said. "Let 'em try. He'd have plenty to stand by him. Th' masters are on his side, my lad." He touched his horse, and it began to move. Suddenly he checked it and looked back, speaking again. "Keep it to yourself, then," he said, "if there's danger, and keep my name out of it, by George, if you want to be safe!" Just as he drove up to the gates of the yard Murdoch passed him and entered them. Until then--since he had left Briarley--he had not spoken. He had driven rapidly on his way with a grim, steady face. As Murdoch went by he got down from his gig, and went to the horse's head. He stood close to it, knotting the reins. "Nor of him either," he said. "Nor of him either, by----" CHAPTER XXXIV. A CLIMAX. The same night Mr. Briarley came home in a condition more muddled and disheveled than usual. He looked as if he had been hustled about and somewhat unceremoniously treated. He had lost his hat, and was tremulous and excited. He came in without the trifling ceremony of opening the door. In fact, he fell up against it and ran in, and making an erratic dive at a chair, sat down. Granny Dixon, who had been dozing in her usual seat, was roused by the concussion and wakened and sat up, glaring excitedly. "He's been at it again!" she shouted. "At it again! He'll nivver ha' none o' my brass to mak' way wi'. He's been at----" Mrs. Briarley turned upon her. "Keep thy mouth shut" she said. The command was effective in one sense, though not in another. Mrs. Dixon stopped in the midst of the word "at" with her mouth wide open, and so sat for some seconds, with the aspect of an ancient beldam ordinarily going by machinery and suddenly having had her works stopped. She would probably have presented this appearance for the remainder of the evening if Mrs. Briarley had not addressed her again. "Shut thy mouth!" she said. The works were set temporarily in motion, and her countenance slowly resumed its natural lines. She appeared to settle down all over and sink and become smaller, though, as she crouched nearer the fire, she had rather an evil look, which seemed to take its red glow into her confidence and secretly rage at it. "What's tha been doin'?" Mrs. Briarley demanded of her better half. "Out wi' it!"