"I'll get over for it, Dick. You stop where you are." It was lying where he had been sitting; a short strap with a broken buckle. Dick took it and we went on again. "Were you asleep, just now, Dick?" "No, sir. It were the moon." "What was the moon?" "I were looking into it. Mother says God's all above there: I thought happen I might see Him." A long explanation for Dick to-night. The recovery of the strap seemed to have brightened up his intellect. "You'll never see Him in this world, Dick. He sees you always." "And that's what mother says. He sees I can't do more nor my arms'll let me. I'd not like Him to think I can." "All right, Dick. You only do your best always; He won't fail to see it." I had hardly said the last words when down went Dick without warning, face foremost. Picking him up, I took a look into his eyes by the moonlight. "What did you do that for, Dick?" "I don't know." "Is it your legs?" "Yes, it's my legs. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it when I fell under the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I did." After that I did not loose him; or I'm sure he would have gone down again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for passing it. "Don't you know your own door, Dick Mitchel?" "It's the strap," he said. "I ha' got to take it to Cawson's." "Oh, I'll step round with that. Let's see what there is to do." He seemed unwilling, saying he must take it back to Hall in the morning. Very well, I said, so he could. We went in at his door; and at first I thought I must have got into a black fog. The room was a narrow, poking place; but I couldn't see across it. Two children were coughing, one choking, one crying. Mrs. Mitchel's face, ornamented with blacks, gradually loomed out to view through the atmosphere. "It be the chimbley, sir. I hope you'll please to excuse it. It don't smoke as bad as this except when the weather's cold beyond common." "It's to be hoped it doesn't. I should call it rather miserable if it did." "Yes, sir. Mitchel, he says he thinks the chimbley must have frozed." "Look here, Mrs. Mitchel, I've brought Dick home: I found him sitting in the cold on the other side of the stile, and my belief is, he thought he could not get over it. He is about as weak as a young rat." "It's the frost, sir," she said. "The boys all feel it that has to be out and about. It'll soon be gone, Dick. This here biting cold don't never last long." Dick was standing against her, bending his face on her old stuff gown. She put her arm about him kindly. "No, it can't last long, Mrs. Mitchel. Could he not be kept indoors until it gives a bit--let him have a holiday? No? Wouldn't it do?" She opened her eyes wide at this. Such a thing as keeping a ploughboy at home for a holiday, had never entered her imagination. "Why, Master Ludlow, sir, he'd lose his place!" "But, suppose he were ill, and had to stay at home?"