Inman was seen in the street before the snow came, and not until his dead body was found a fortnight later was it known for certain that he had planned an escape. He had pledged his word not to leave the village, and Stalker’s successor was supposed to keep an observant eye on him; but there had been no definition of boundaries, so that there was always the possibility that he had been cut off by the storm and had found shelter in some upland farm with which there was no present means of communication. Maniwel cherished no such hope. “He’s gone, lad,” he said to Jagger, and his son nodded. “It can’t be helped,” he replied. A farmer, seeking his dead sheep, found him when the thaw came, in a shallow depression not two yards deep, into which he had stumbled as he walked, doubtless with his head bent to the challenge of the rising gale, across the moor. There he had lain, stunned and with a broken leg, less than twenty feet from the path by which he had entered Mawm a year and a half before, and there death had overtaken him. On his body was the evidence of his intention—notes and gold to a large amount which he had brought from their hiding-place, and with which, no doubt, he had hoped to start life afresh. The village of Mawm has still the carpenter’s shop, and the business is prosperous in a moderate way. Baldwin Briggs has an interest in it, but the name upon the sign-board is “Drake and Son.” Little new machinery has been added, for though capital was not entirely lacking the Drakes have the conservatism of the Yorkshire countryman, and are afraid of moving too fast. They have “made brass” but not piled it up very high; yet there is enough and a little to spare, and Nancy Drake is satisfied. She has two children, sturdy boys both of them, who are the pride of their grandfather’s heart, and a husband who grows more like his father every day. So Swithin says, and now that Ambrose, like grannie, sleeps lower down the valley there is no greater authority in Mawm. Hannah and her father occupy the old home, and there is a rumour in the village that Jack Pearce would like to share it with them, or alternatively to take Hannah to one of his providing. Baldwin and Keturah, too, are in familiar quarters. Nancy was glad to get away when Jagger married her, and he rented a good, square house across the stream where there is a garden for the children. Baldwin has aged very much, and his temper is still occasionally raspy, but if he gives trouble it is only Keturah who knows it, and she is certainly no more fretful than before; indeed, there are those who assert that the fountain of her tears is almost dry. Fate or Providence? “I was against it at t’ time,” says Jagger. “It seemed like a fool’s trick, and it was a lot o’ brass to lose; but it was a providence for all that.” Nancy says nothing. THE END TRANSCRIBER NOTES