"It was this way. I'd overslept myself that morning, good New Year's Day though it was. You see we'd had the watch-night service in the chapel, and I can't stand these late hours. If I miss my sleep I feel stupid for a week at after. It would, maybe, be seven o'clock, and darkish still, when I was wakened by Tear'em, Abe's old terrier you know, kicking up the most awful racket you ever heard, and there was somebody pounding at the kitchen door I thought sure it was one of th' congregation taken badly and wanting my father. They nearly always contrive to come on that errand when we're warm and snug in bed. Nobody ever seems to be taken worse at a reasonable hour. I'm sure I don't know why, but it is so, and I've heard Dr. Dean say th' same thing. 'Well, let 'em knock,' I thought, 'father's not rested yet after th' watch-night service, an' I'll not let him out of this house for th' King of England till he's had his porridge. He's getting too old for tramping th' moors i' midwinter on an empty stomach.' But th' pounding went on, and Tear 'em got worse and worse. So I slipped out o' bed an' drew my blind up, to let 'em know I was waken. Then I dressed myself, and went down to unbar th' door. When I got it open I saw two men making off down th' road as fast as their legs could carry them; th' snow was falling thick and fast, and they'd their backs to me and their heads bent, so who they were I've no more notion than our cat. Not to swear to, I mean, but if one of them wasn't Daft Billy my name's not Ruth Holmes, and that I'll stick to, to my dying day, though father says I've no right to jump to conclusions. 'Well, that's a nice trick to play on a parson,' I was saying to myself, 'that'll be some Slowit Church Choir that have been letting New Year in, an' done this for spite,' when I heard a groan that made me jump nearly out of my frock. And there was poor Abe, propped up against the house side all covered with white, like a snowman. His head was sunk on his breast, and his coat, was tied round his neck. Somebody had tied a dirty red handkerchief round his arm to stop the bleeding, and Dr. Dean said whoever'd done it knew a thing or two, and that makes me all the surer Daft Billy had his finger in th' pie, for you know how clever he is with a cow. Now, do sit further off, Jim, or I won't say another word." "Aw don't think th' settle legs at this side are o'er strong," muttered Jim, "an aw think aw mun ha' getten a cowd i' mi yead, for aw dunnot ye'r (hear) so weel at a distance, an' yo' munnot speik up or, maybe, yo'll wakken Abe, an' aw'm certain sure that'd noan be good for his health. Same as fo'k as walk i' their sleep, yo' know: they _do_ say if yo' wakken 'em sudden they go off their yeads, an' stop so all their lives 'at after. Tha'd nivver forgive thissen, Ruth, if yo' had to shout through me bein' a bit deafish an' sittin' three yard off. But ger on wi' thi tale."