324 CHAPTER XXXII. TELLS OF WHAT CAME LATER. If we do well here, we shall do well there; I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. -Speech upon the Right of Election. So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er, -The What-d'ye-call-it, ii., 9. He has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle. -The Whistle. I waited for the message, and the message came to me, A widow won, With brisk attempt and putting-on. -Hudibras, i., I. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. -Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller. If so be that the tale were worth the telling, then the tale were worth the ending, or I mistake me; and it were befitting that the ending of the tale were worthy of what the beginning and the middle were. -Kronos, vi., 3. 325 XXXII. So ended the three days' adventure of Matt Scargil; but the sequel may be told. One afternoon, three autumns later, the yeoman of Kennel Farm was riding Merrylegs home from Sheffield horse-market; his stablemen, with the saddles and halters, were to make the journey by carrier's cart. Matt had sold his young horses well, every one of them, and had paid a thick roll of notes into the Change Alley Bank. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the Ecclesall road out of Sheffield was thronged with grinders and table-knife-blade forgers bent on fishing in Endcliffe dams or a poaching stroll on the moors. A knot of these cutlers had gathered near Hunter's Bar, around an outdoor preacher. Matt Scargil stopped to listen, and in an instant knew that the evangelist was Mr. Bone. "I'm afraid you're a lot of miserable sinners," Mr. Bone was remarking. "The time when I was a Bow Street runner, I might have had law-business with a good few of you, if the truth was known. But it don't matter to me now what you might have done; I'm not going to inquirify, neither, if so be as you'll only repent and make a fresh start. Be sure your sin'll find you out, if you don't, in the long run. You might escape for a goodish bit, but never for ever. Why, there was a gypsy chap, as me and my old partner, Jarvey, was after over yonder, Stoniton way, this time two years. We'd hunted that gypsy chap for a fortni't, first to last, and we lost him after all, and, of course, we lost the Reward, and I give up the runner business soon after that, because I'd got what you poor worms haven't-I'd got religion. Well, I read in the paper t'other day as how the Flash Budgerperhaps you've heard the name as how the Flash Budger had got nabbed after all. It was my old partner, Jarvey, nabbed him, Essex way. Budger, he'd escaped us time and again, and a reg'lar clever chap he was at getting off. But he's swinging high and dry for robbing a coach now, down Essex way, and every creak of them chains he swings in says to worms of sinners such as you, 'Repent, repent! Put off the old Adam, seek the strait gate and the narrow way, or you'll come to a bad finish at last.'" That Matt Scargil did not wait to be recognised; he rode on, by Ecclesall and Ringinglowe, his thoughts back at Stoniton, the derelict silk-mill, the dale of Aspurt, and the Lazar's Crypt once more. So that was the finish of the Budger, was it? How the fellow must be grinning on the gibbet a soundless, aggravating laugh! Dead, was he and dead without blabbing, happen; well, the secret would never get out now. Never a back-word of it had come to Whinyat, never an inkle of the grave in the cave; the villagers believed th' pratty young dame had lost her clivver mon i' furrin parts. Now that the Budger was gibbeted, the only folk outside the family that knew were Jeruel, Flamenca, and the Methody parson who said the prayer. The Methody would never split of it, and Jeruel and Flamenca were far away "across the big bath". Oh, there were the other Chilcutts, Coob and the gran'-mam, but they'd be silent as the grave itself. Good old Jeruel; Matt had found a letter from him waiting at the Sheffield post-office to be sent on to Whinyat. He re-read it as Merrylegs jogged up hill. "Better luck than me," he sighed. "Well, I wish 'em happy, I do." It was hardly evening yet, and the morrow was Sunday. Time and eneugh for it," he thought; the impulse had come to him to ride home the long way round, across Nine Ladies Moor instead of down the gap. Happen there'd be news on the Stone, of Coob and the bee-bee, to send to Delaware when he wrote his answering letter. He took the longer road. Purple against the purpling sky the Cromlech rose huge and grim before him. Something white and black shone near it, and for an instant superstition spoke. But only for an instant. "It's you, by Jud!" he said, as he sprang from the "What're you wanting here, lass?" mare. The something white was a muslin gown, clipped at the waist by a broad black ribbon; but, the ribbon |