"It was a moment's temptation, sir," he said, with bitter sorrow, "and I hev been as miserable as any devil out o' hell could be iver since. T' night as Clough were shot, I had passed his house, and seen Mary Clough at t' garden gate, and she hed been varry scornful, and told me she'd marry Ben Craven, or stay unmarried; and I were feeling bad about it. I thought I'd walk across t' moor and meet Clough, and tell him what Mary said, and as I went along I heard a shot, and saw a man running. As he came near I knew it was Bingley i' Ben Craven's working clothes. He looked i' my face, and said, 'Clough thinks Ben Craven fired t' shot. If ta helps me away, thou'lt get Mary. Can I go to thy cottage?' And I said, 'There's a cellar underneath.' That was all. He had stole Ben's overworker's brat and cap from t' room while Ben was drinking his tea, and Ben nivver missed it till Jerry Oddy asked where it was. At night I let him burn them i' my forge. I hev wanted to tell t' truth often; and I were sick as could be wi' swearing away Ben's life; indeed I were!" Before noon the village was in an uproar of excitement. Laycock followed Bingley to Leeds, and both were committed for trial to York Castle. Both also received the reward of their evil deed: Bingley forfeited his life, and Laycock went to Norfolk Island to serve out a life sentence. The day of Ben's release was a great holiday. Troubled as the squire was, he flung open the large barn at Hallam, and set a feast for the whole village. After it there was a meeting at the chapel, and Ben told how God had strengthened and comforted him, and made his prison cell a very gate of heaven. And Martha, who had so little to say to any human being for weeks, spoke wondrously. Her heart was burning with love and gratitude; the happy tears streamed down her face; she stood with clasped hands, telling how God had dealt with her, and trying in vain to express her love and praise until she broke into a happy song, and friends and neighbors lifted it with her, and the rafters rang to "Hallelujah to the Lamb, Who has purchased our pardon! We will praise him again When we pass over Jordan." If we talk of heaven on earth, surely they talk of earth in heaven; and if the angels are glad when a sinner repents, they must also feel joy in the joy and justification of the righteous. And though Martha and Ben's friends and neighbors were rough and illiterate, they sang the songs of Zion, and spoke the language of the redeemed, and they gathered round the happy son and mother with the unselfish sympathy of the sons and daughters of God. Truly, as the rector said, when speaking of the meeting, "There is something very humanizing in Methodism."