It was now that the crowd lost all restraint, save just as was needed to keep a clear path to the inn. From the bridge, and from the green, and from the inn-front--where men were standing on tiptoe in the gigs to get a clearer view--a deafening clamour rose. It was no spasmodic cheering, broken by silences, but a steady, ever-growing roar, like the thunder of a stream when snow is loosened from the hills. Never since this yearly battle of the fells first took its place in Linsall’s story had such a race been watched. The time between out and home was shorter by five minutes than the fastest record known; but, more than this, there were two men left to fight it out to the end--two men who came with swift, loping strides through the dust of the roadway--two men whose faces at another time would have been terrible to see, so contorted were they with weariness, and desperation, and fierce effort to keep up. Bownas led by a few feet now, and the onlookers were making frenzied calls to Gaunt to make a last spurt for it. The uproar rose to the hills that hemmed in Linsall village, and it broke against the fells with muffled echo. It was a moment when a man might well prove stronger than himself, and a strange gaiety caught Reuben unawares. There were still two hundred yards to go, and he saw that Bownas was content to keep his lead and was waiting for his last big effort until nearer home. Gaunt could not wait; he gathered all his strength, and glanced past Bownas with sudden speed and crossed the winning-line with an impetus he could not check. The inn doorway was in front of him--otherwise he would have crashed against the wall in his blind rush--and he ran down the long passage, and checked himself when he reached the settle at the far end, and sat with his head between his hands. A darkness and great sickness closed about him for awhile; then he lifted his head, and saw the landlord standing near him with an air of much good-will and some anxiety. “Bring me something--something in a mug, Jonas,” said Gaunt, with a feeble smile. Jonas laughed, as he patted the other on the back. “Not just sure whether ye’ve any inward parts left at all, Mr. Gaunt? Want to cure that durned, queer feel of emptiness? Oh, bless ye, I know it. I’ve run i’ fell-races before, but niver as ye ran to-day! God bless me, ye’ve the legs of a deer!” Peggy had seen from the pasture-fields how Gaunt came home far down below; and, when she reached the village, it was to find the hero of the year being carried shoulder-height by six of the Linsall men. No leader of old, returning from victory through a crowded capital, could have claimed more honour than Reuben Gaunt. Unprepared, to gratify a lass’s whim, he had won a contest that would go down in Garth’s history so long as there were folk to sit beside the hearth o’ nights and tell of it.