The private kilns were accordingly abandoned and allowed to fall to ruin. Some were prudently filled in with earth and sand, but this was exceptional. The majority were allowed to crumble in slowly; and at the present day such abandoned kilns may be found on all sides, in various stages of decay. Into such a kiln, that had not been filled in, Jonas had fallen, when he stepped backwards, unconscious of its existence. Polly Colpus had followed her father, but kept in the rear, alarmed, and dreading a ghastly sight. The farmer bent with hands on his knees over the hole. Samuel knelt. "Have you got him?" asked Colpus. "Lend a hand," called Thomas from below, and with the assistance of those above the body of Jonas Kink was lifted on to the bank. "He's dead," said the farmer. Then Mehetabel laughed. The three men and Polly Colpus turned and looked at her with estrangement. They did not understand that there was neither mockery nor frivolity in the laugh, that it proceeded involuntarily from the sudden relaxation of overstrained nerves. At the moment Mehetabel was aware of one thing only, that she had nothing more to fear, that her baby was safe from pursuit. It was this thought that dominated her and caused the laugh of relief. She had not in the smallest degree realized how it was that this relief was obtained. "Fetch a hurdle," said Colpus, "and, Polly, run in and send a couple of men. We must carry him to the Punch-Bowl. I reckon he's pretty well done for. I don't see a sign of life in him." The Broom-Squire was laid on the gass. Strange is the effect of death on a man's clothes. The moment the vital spark has left the body, the garments hang about him as though never made to fit him. They take none of the usual folds; they lose their gloss--it is as though life had departed out of them as well. Mehetabel seated herself on a bit of swelling ground and looked on, without understanding what she saw; seeing, hearing, as in a dream; and after the first spasm of relief, as if what was being done in no way concerned her, belonged to another world to her own. It was as though she were in the moon and saw what men were doing on the earth. When the Broom-Squire had been lifted upon a hurdle, then Polly Colpus thought right to touch Mehetabel, and say in a low tone: "You will follow him and go to the Punch-Bowl?" "I will never, never go there again. I have said so," answered Mehetabel. Then to avoid being pressed further, she stood up and went away, bearing her child in her arms. The men looked after her and shook their heads. "Bideabout has had a blow on the forehead," said Colpus. Mehetabel returned to the school, entered without a word, and seated herself by the fire. "Have you succeeded?" asked the widow. "How?" "Will Farmer Colpus take you?" "I don't know." "What have you in your hand?" Mehetabel opened her fingers and allowed Betty Chivers to remove from her hand a lump of ironstone.