“Thirtieth March.” “Liverpool till then?” “Ay. Take time! We’re moving.” “What address?” “Nay, what it’s no--get out, man! We’re off!” “_The address?_” “Five, Derby Road.” Angry hands tore Brack from the express, and more or less hurled him off the station and into his car, but for once he was too distracted to resent interference with his personal dignity. He did not hear Denny’s polite inquiry after the pigs. He even drove away with his hat on the middle of his head, and a dead cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. * * * * * The sale was over. The Whinnerahs had seen their possessions catalogued and scattered, saving only a remnant for the furnishing of the little Pride. Wolf had gone the round of the house, handling each piece for the last time as if it had been a pet beast, but his wife had made no sign, refusing to quiver at the blow of the hammer. When the end came, it was she, lately so shrinking and afraid, who led the man out into the waste. The closing door echoed its drear Amen through the deserted building. The empty house followed them with its desolate, hollow eyes--the bent man clinging to the frail woman in her old-fashioned mantle and neat bonnet, the dispirited dogs slinking at their heels. He would have turned again for a last wander through the shippons had she not held him with her thin fingers. To the left, as they walked, the heaving gray of the sea reached out into the still gray of the sky. The Lugg itself looked gray, and ruggedly old. Below it the tide was running strongly, lipping far up the Let and filling the estuaries. It seemed a forty years’ travel in the wilderness, this sad progress out of life, but at last, a few hundred yards beyond where the road ceased and became a track, their new home waited their slow approach. Mrs. Dockeray and Francey were there to welcome them, and had brought a cheerful homeliness into the isolated cottage, setting a kettle singing in the kitchen, and a bowl of Ladyford snowdrops on the wooden table. The old couple’s chairs were in their usual places at the hearth. Wolf’s patchwork cushion was ready to his shoulders, and the last week’s _Gazette_ put to his hand. On the wall, Mrs. Whinnerah’s proud “Peter” hung in all his glory of burnished copper, and a set of cherished willow-pattern stood to attention in the little pot-rail. A thick cloth hearthrug promised comfort to the dogs. On the miniature oak-floored landing the Ninekyrkes “grandfather,” an ancient Whinnerah name on his brass face, swung a deep, almost human note down the shallow stairs.