was dead ; nay, the old man immediately jumped
to the conclusion that his child had been starved
to death, without money, in a wild, wide, strange
place. All he could say at first was :

"My heart, Bess—my heart is broken!" And
he put his hand to his side, still keeping his
shut eyes covered with the other, as though he
never wished to see the light of day again.
Bessy was down by his side in an instant,
holding him in her arms, chafing and kissing him.

"It's noan so bad, uncle; he's not dead; the
letter does not say that, dunnot think it. He's
flitted from that lodging, and the lazy tyke
dunna know where to find him; and so, they just
send y' back th' letter, instead of trying fra'
house to house, as Mark Benson would. I've
always heerd tell on south country folk for laziness.
He's noan dead, uncle; he's just flitted,
and he'll let us know afore long where he's
getten to. Mebby it's a cheaper place, for that
lawyer has cheated him, ye recklet, and he'll
be trying to live for as little as can, that's all,
uncle. Dunnot take on so, for it doesna say
he's dead." By this time, Bessy was crying
with agitation, although she firmly believed in
her own view of the case, and had felt the
opening of the ill-favoured letter as a great
relief. Presently she began to urge both with
word and action upon her uncle, that he should
sit no longer on the damp grass. She pulled
him up, for he was very stiff, and, as he said,
"all shaken to dithers." She made him walk
about, repeating over and over again her solution
of the case, always in the same words,
beginning again and again, "He's noan dead;
it's just been a flitting," and so on. Nathan
shook his head, and tried to be convinced;
but it was a steady belief in his own heart for
all that. He looked so deathly ill on his return
home with Bessy (for she would not let him go
on with his day's work), that his wife made sure
he had taken cold, and he, weary and indifferent
to life, was glad to subside into bed and the rest
from exertion which his real bodily illness gave
him. Neither Bessy nor he spoke of the letter
again, even to each other, for many days; and
Bessy found means to stop Mark Benson's
tongue, and satisfy his kindly curiosity by giving
him the rosy side of her own view of the case.

Nathan got up again an older man in looks
and constitution by ten years for that week of
bed. His wife gave him many a scolding on
his imprudence for sitting down in the wet field,
if ever so tired. But now she, too, was beginning
to be uneasy at Benjamin's long-continued
silence. She could not write herself, but she
urged her husband many a time to send a
letter to ask for news of her lad. He said
nothing in reply for some time; at length he
told her he would write next Sunday afternoon.
Sunday was his general time for writing,
and this Sunday he meant to go to church
for the first time since his illness. On Saturday
he was very persistent against his wife's
wishes (backed by Bessy as hard as she could),
in resolving to go into Highminster to market.
The change would do him good, he said. But
he came home tired, and a little mysterious
in his ways. When he went to the
shippon the last thing at night, he asked Bessy
to go with him, and hold the lantern, while he
looked at an ailing cow; and, when they were
fairly out of the earshot of the house, he pulled
out a little shop-parcel, and said to her,

"Thou'lt put that on ma Sunday hat, wilt 'ou
lass? It'll be a bit on a comfort to me; for I know
my lad's dead and gone, though I dunna speak
on it for fear o' grieving th' old woman and ye."

"I'll put it on, uncle, if — But he's noan
dead." (Bessy was sobbing.)

"I know — I know, lass. I dunnot wish other
folk to hold my opinion; but I'd like to wear a
bit o' crape, out o' respect to my boy. It 'ud
have done me good for to have ordered a black
coat, but she'd see if I had na' on my wedding-
coat, Sundays, for a' she's losing her eyesight,
poor old wench! But she'll ne'er take notice o' a
bit o' crape. Thou'll put it on all canny and tidy."

So Nathan went to church with a strip of
crape as narrow as Bessy durst venture to make
it round his hat. Such is the contradictoriness
of human nature, that, though he was most
anxious his wife should not hear of his conviction
that their son was dead, he was half hurt that
none of the neighbours noticed his sign of mourning
so far as to ask him for whom he wore it.

But after a while, when they never heard a
word from or about Benjamin, the household
wonder as to what had become of him grew so
painful and strong, that Nathan no longer kept
his idea to himself. Poor Hester, however,
rejected it with her whole will, heart, and soul.
She could not and would not believe—nothing
should make her believe—that her only child
Benjamin had died without some sign of love or
farewell to her. No arguments could shake her
in this. She believed that if all natural means
of communication between her and him had been
cut off at the last supreme moment—if death had
come upon him in an instant, sudden and
unexpected—her intense love would, she believed, have
been supernaturally made conscious of the blank.
Nathan at times tried to feel glad that she could
still hope to see the lad again; but at other
moments he wanted her sympathy in his grief, his
self-reproach, his weary wonder as to how and
what they had done wrong in the treatment of
their son, that he had been such a care and
sorrow to his parents. Bessy was convinced, first
by her aunt, and then by her uncle—honestly
convinced—on both sides of the argument; and so,
for the time, able to sympathise with each. But
she lost her youth in a very few months; she
looked set and middle aged long before she
ought to have done; and rarely smiled and
never sang again.

All sorts of new arrangements were required
by the blow which told so miserably upon the
energies of all the household at Nab-end.
Nathan could no longer go about and direct his
two men, taking a good turn of work himself at
busy times. Hester lost her interest in her
dairy; for which indeed her increasing loss of
sight unfitted her. Bessy would either do field