As the evening passed away, these troublous thoughts grew more clamorous. He was sitting on the hearth where his forefathers had spent their quiet evenings before him good, honest men; and possibly he might live to hear of his grandson, their child as well as his, being convicted of some great crime, and sentenced to transportation or penal servitude for life. It would have been himself that had given the child the first push down the long and awful flight of steps leading to the terrible gulf. That would be the shameful end of his upright, thrifty, truth-loving race. Had he, then, any right to doom his family, and its own honoured name, to such a close? Could he not yet turn back only a half-step, and take another road? He had not gone too far on this perilous path. Not a soul knew that Chrissie was locked up in the old crib. He would see if he could make the boy promise faithfully not to tell if he released him. He had the old blood in his veins, and, perhaps, young as he was, he could keep a promise. The clock had struck eleven before Christmas came to this conclusion, a halting, half-false conclusion, of which he was inwardly ashamed. He did not like taking a middle course, so he rose up slowly, and leisurely opened the house-door, still hesitating about this compromise with his resolution to treat Easter and her boy as if they were utter strangers. He crossed the lane and paced along the churchyard with very slow footsteps. All was silent in the village; the only sounds to be heard were the brawling of the river and the hooting of the white owl in his barnyard. There was but one light to be seen, excepting the glimmer through the window of that room where the dead was lying, and that light was up in one of the rectory attics, shining brightly into the darkness of the night. Very likely it was Easter's candle, thought her father; she loved to keep the window open on summer nights. Christmas was a man who knew nothing of fear, superstitious fear above all. He paced to and fro in the dark churchyard, thinking of how he should deal with the boy, and in what manner he should dispose of him for the rest of the night. Certainly he would upbraid and threaten him; call him a thief and a disgrace, young and little as he was. He must frighten him well. But where was he to take his grandson? All the cottagers were gone to bed; and it would never do to call them up to take in Chrissie, and so learn the very weakness he wished to hide.