“By Jove!” said he, “this bangs Banagher!” The brickbat was still in his hand. All unconsciously his fingers had closed around it when Mr. Clayton had placed it in his palm. He looked at it, and then turned round again, and looked down Kesterton High-street, as if the donor was still in view. There was an unwonted moisture in his eyes, as he said to himself, “Hey, I shall want it again.” He dropped it into his pouch-like pocket, and strode away in silence towards Midden Harbour. Letting himself into the house, Black Morris stole to his room, and passing his mother’s door, he paused, and said, “God bless her! an’ the Methody parson, too!” CHAPTER XX. KASPER CRABTREE FALLS AMONG THIEVES. “All vice in which man yields in greed to do it, Or soon or late, be sure he’ll sorely rue it. Experience deep, howe’er false seemings blind him, Surcharged with retribution, out will find him. The whole creation’s strange and endless dealing, In spite of shields and veils and arts concealing, Proclaims that whosoe’er is long a sinner, Can only be by it of woe a winner.” _Oriental._ Kesterton Fair was always held about the middle of November, and a large number of cattle, bred and fed on the various farms in that highly-cultivated district, were, as usual, gathered there for public sale. On the afternoon of that day, a party of four suspicious-looking fellows sat boozing on strong ale in the kitchen of a small public-house, which stood by the roadside between Kesterton and Nestleton Magna, and near a long tract of plantation known as Thurston Wood. They were habited in velveteen, fustian, and corduroy, wore hair-skin caps, and bore the usual marks of that class of leafing, poaching, lawless vagabonds, who, fifty years ago, were sadly plentiful in all rural districts, and are not by any means extinct to-day. They were holding a secret confabulation, and judging by their low tones and watchful glances it was evident that they were desirous of avoiding observation. The principal spokesman was an ill-favoured looking fellow, whose broad, whiskerless face betokened the bully and the brute. His name was Bill Buckley, commonly known as “Fighting Bill,” and the terror of the country side. “There’s seeafe to be a good chance te-neet,” said the desperado; “the worst on’t is ’at there’s ower monny chances at yance, an’ if we tackle mair than we can manage, we may happen to get nowt. And Kasper Crabtree, o’ Kesterton Grange, is at the fair, an’ he’s sellin’ a lot o’ beeasts, an’ ’ll carry a looad o’ swag, you may depend on’t.” “Ah sud like te throttle him,” said another, professedly a besom-maker, named Dick Spink, a resident in the unsavoury regions of Midden Harbour. “He set his big dog at me while ah was cuttin’ some besom shafts in his wood; ah’ll hev it oot with ’im when ah’ve chance.” “That’s right, Dick,” said Buckley; “t’ chance is come, an’ thoo’ll get booath revenge an’ a hundred gold guineas beside.”