As the deadly earnest of my deed came home to my stunned mind, I had no thought of escape. I would face it out, confess and die. My father’s agony--for he loved us in his way, I believe; Jason’s condemnation; Zyp’s hatred; my own shame and torture--I put them all on one side to get full view of that black crossbeam and rope that I felt to be the only medicine for my sick and haunted soul. As I stood, the sound of wheels on the road beyond woke me to some necessity of action. Stumbling, as in a nightmare; not feeling my feet, but only the mechanical spring of motion, I hurried to the hedge side and looked over. A carter with a tilt wagon was urging his tired team homeward. “Help!” I cried. “Oh, come and help me!” And my voice seemed to me to issue from under the tilt of the wagon. He “woa’d” up his horses, raised his hat from his forehead, wrinkled with hot weariness, and came toward me, his whip over his shoulder. “What’s toward?” said he. “My brother!” I gasped. “We were bathing together and he’s drowned.” The man’s boorish face lighted up like a farthing rushlight. Here was something horribly sordid enough for all the excitement he was worth. It would sweeten many a pot of swipes for the week to come. “Wheer be the body?” said he, eagerly. “Over yonder, on the grass. Oh, won’t you help me to carry it home?” He looked at the hedge critically. “Go, you,” he said, “and drag ’en hither. We’ll gat ’en over hedge together.” I ran back to where it lay. It had collapsed a little to one side, and for an instant my breath caught in a wild thrill of hope that he had moved of himself. But the waxen hue of the face in the gathering dusk killed my emotion on its very issuing. A strange loathing of the thing, lying so unresponsive, had in my race backward and forward sprung upon me, but before it could gain the mastery I had seized it under the arm-pits and was half-dragging, half-carrying it toward the road. I was at the hedge before I knew it, and the red face of the carter was peering curiously down at the white heap beneath. “Harned ’en up,” he said. “My, but it’s cold. Easy, now. Take the toes of ’en. Thart’s it--woa!” and he had it in his strong arms and shuffling heavily to the rear of his wagon, jerked back the flap of the tilt with his elbow and slid the body like a package into the interior. “Get your coat, man,” he cried, “and coom away.” I had forgotten in the terror of it all my own half-dressed state, for I had stripped only to my underclothes, and my boots were still on my feet. Mechanically I returned to the riverside, and hastily donning my coat and trousers, snatched up the other’s tumbled garments and ran back to the road. CHAPTER VIII. THE WAKING. The carter was holding the curtain back and critically apostrophizing the thing within. “Ay, he be sound enough. Reckon nought but the last trump’ll waken yon. Now, youngster, where may you live?” I told him.