he was seen striding down the steep narrow street, the little boys hid themselves. They had not been able to resist altogether the temptation of dry thorns in his fences, and of the chips which had still lain about where his winter felling had been done, and they concluded he was come now to give them a rough handling: but they found themselves mistaken. He was in high good-humour, sending such boys as he could catch with orders upon his people at home for a tar-barrel and a whole load of faggots. “’Tis hardly natural, though, is it?” said Mrs. Billiter to Ann Warrender. “It does not seem natural for any father to rejoice in a victory when his own son has lost his best leg there.” “Has Jack Neale lost his leg? O! what a thing!” exclaimed Ann Warrender. She was going on, but she perceived that the farmer had heard her. “Yes,” said he, without any sound of heart-pain in his voice. “Jack has lost his right leg, Mr. Finch tells me. And I tell Mr. Finch, it is almost a pity the other did not go after it. He deserved no more good of either of them when he had let them do such a thing as carry him off from his home and his duty.” “How _can_ you, Mr. Neale?” burst out both the women. “How can I do what, my dears? One thing I can do; and that is, see when an undutiful son is properly punished. He must live on his pension, however: he can be of no use to me, now; and I can’t be burdened with a cripple at home.” “I don’t think he will ask you,” Mrs. Billiter said. “He was none so happy there before as to want to come again.” Ann Warrender told this speech to her father afterwards as the severest she had ever heard from Mrs. Billiter; and they agreed that it was very bold, considering that Billiter was one of Farmer Neale’s labourers. But they also agreed that it was enough to stir up flesh and blood to see a man made hearty and good-humoured by misfortune having befallen a son who had offended him. After all, poor Jack Neale had run away only because he could not bear his father’s tyranny. Two more of the Bleaburn recruits had suffered—had been killed outright; one a widower, who, in his first grief, had left his babes with their grandmother, and gone to the wars; and the other, an ignorant lout, who had been entrapped because he was tall and strong; had been fuddled with beer, flattered with talk of finery, and carried off before he could recover his slow wits. He was gone, and would soon be forgotten. “I say, Jem,” said Farmer Neale, when he met the village idiot, Jem Johnson, shuffling along the street, staring at the lights: “you’re the wise man, after all: you’re the best off, my man.” Widow Johnson, who was just behind, put her arm in poor Jem’s, and tried to make him move on. She was a stern woman; but she was as much disgusted at Farmer Neale’s hardness as her tender-hearted daughter, Mrs. Billiter, or anyone else.