“The thought of my pony will work in his mind the next time he is ill, I fancy,” observed Milford. “Do but see how he pats him, and feels out the mane, while his mother lifts him up?” The hostess remarked that the best smiles seen on Mrs. Eldred’s face of late had been won from her by this little lad. Mr. Milford gave Mr. Severn leave to indulge the child with a ride backwards and forwards, while he finished his business with his patient. Mrs. Eldred could not be persuaded to make herself quite easy about the pony’s quietness, and go back to her work. She lingered, and turned, and watched, as the animal sauntered to and fro, with a man at the head, a dozen boys at the heels, Mr. Severn holding on little Tim, and Tim himself now quietly laughing, now encouraging his steed as he heard others do, and for ever turning his head from side to side, as if gathering by that motion all the floating sounds which could tell him what was passing. A sound soon came rushing instead of floating through the air, so vehement as to make the still restless pony rear bolt upright, jerking the child into Mr. Severn’s arms, and calling upon the man at the head for all his energies. The cry, loud as it was, came from some distance,— from the spout or staithe where a waggon was at the moment being emptied into a keel. A crowd soon collected on the spot, and it became certain that the shouts were of a joyous character. There was talk of “the gang,” “the tender,” “the pressed men”; but the tone was one of triumph, and cries of “Welcome!” were intermingled.—Mrs. Eldred heard part, and believed every thing,—every thing that in another moment would have been absurd;—that the king had had mercy upon her,—(as if, alas! he knew her heart-sorrow;) that peace was made on purpose to restore a father to her children; that Eldred had bid successful defiance to the gang, and was upheld by the whole people; that the world had been, somehow or other, turned upside down for her sake. She pushed her way, with an exulting countenance, among the crowd. She met Ned Elliott, the lame pitman, and passed him by; and she passed by several other returned captives;— Croley, with the weak right arm, and Pullen, the sickly steersman, and Gilbert, the half idiot, who was allowed to lounge about the works. All these she pushed past, and, from the extreme end of the little pier, looked down into the boat which had landed them. There was no one else. Eldred was neither a cripple, nor sickly, nor foolish; he was of the first order of labourers, and therefore snatched from his voluntary occupation, and made a slave. Most who had leisure to observe their heart-stricken neighbour gazed in silence; but the half idiot snapped his fingers, and blurted out that her husband was far down towards the south by this time, but he sent his love, and——