Simon was troubled; but he was not vindictive. He would have been less than a man had he not been bitter against the cruel woman who had causelessly wrecked his good daughter’s life. But he was sorry for Matt, and broke out into no revilings. The woman was dead. The ill she had done had been fearfully punished, and neither curses nor reproaches could affect her or undo the mischief. He left his cheese and jannock on the hides untasted, drew his hand across his forehead, and went down to the river-side and across the wooden bridge for a breath of fresh air and a waft of fresh thought. He was only a rugged tanner, but he had a heart within his breast; he had a daughter on his hearth with a great wound in _her_ heart, a blast on her good name, and he was called upon to forgive the author of this mischief! Simon had long been used to commune with his own heart. He had built up a wall round it with the leaves of that one book on his bureau; and whenever he was in doubt or difficulty, he read the precepts inscribed upon that wall. He went back to Cooper, whose appetite had been no better than his own. “Aw mun think this ower, Matt. Aw connot say aw furgive yo’r Sal o’ at a dash. Hoo’s done that as may niver be undone whoile thee an’ me’s alive; an’ aw connot frame to say as aw furgive her loike o’ on a sudden. An’ aw mun think it ower before eawt be said to eawr Bess, poor wench!” A week elapsed before the subject was broached again. Then Simon spoke to Matthew as they were leaving the tannery-yard. “Coom into th’ ‘Queen Anne’” (he called it quëan), “Matt, and have a gill; aw’ve summat t’ say to thee.” There was nobody in the taproom. They sat down to their half-pint horns of ale—times were too hard to afford deeper draughts—and Simon said: “Aw’ve bin thinkin’ o’ this week, an’ as aw connot forgive yo’r Sal, gradely loike, aw’ll no put th’ same temptation i’ th’ way of eawr Bess. Hoo’d better think Tum’s takken oop wi’ some other wench, than ha’ th’ shame o’ knowin’ th’ lad’s toorned her up i’ disgrace. Hoo’s getten ower th’ worst o’ her trouble, an’ awm not gooin to break her heart outreet, and mebbe set her agen little Jabez into th’ bargain.” Matthew could but assent to Simon’s proposition. But Simon had not said all his say. “But aw’m not gooin’ to sit deawn wi’ my honds i’ mi’ lap, an’ that grëat lump o’ dirty slutch stickin’ to moi lass. Yo’ mun help me t’ find eawt wheer Tum Hulme’s getten to, an’ help to set o’ straight afore aw forgive yo’r Sal, tho’ hoo be dead an’ gone.” “Wi’ o’ my heart!” responded Matt; and he gave his huge hand to Simon in token thereof. When the Duke of Gloucester inspected the volunteers at Ardwick on the 30th of September that same year, not one of the people I have here linked together witnessed the show.