of the district, whence it was redeemed by direction
of the society. It happened to be rather a
better article than the watch which had fallen to
the lot of the Industrious apprentice, Goodchild;
and Thomas Idle, who had now lost his watch
and his instalments, presently discovers that it
is being carried about in the pocket of his more
fortunate friend. Among the lower and viler
natures, it is well known what a morbid and
unreasonable effect a transaction of this description
produces: what a brooding sense of injury,
coupled with an idea of being unlawfully
deprived of what was their own property, settles
on them, and grows almost into a disease.

It also fell out about this date, that the man
whom we have christened Thomas Idle was more
than usually unlucky in his general enterprises,
and unfortunate in other transactions besides that
of his watch. He had married, and yet would
not work. He would not dig, neither would he
spin, nor yet labour in the fields. He had taken
to prowling about honest districts, where his
visits were regarded with not unreasonable
apprehension. Finally, it came to the summer evenings
in the month of May, when the twilight was
long, and the walks home after the day's work
were very pleasant. Finally, too, it came to a
Saturday summer's evening in this month of May.

On the Friday previous, when the uncle's
family was getting ready tea and supper for the
return of the men from work, the ill-looking
slouching figure of the Idle apprentice
presented itself in a Glengarry cap, came in,
sat down, had tea, and put many questions
about the industrious Wilgar, who was
expected presently. By-and-by, he arrived, found
his friend, and after a short time the pair went
out together for an evening walk. Charles
Wilgar did not return until past ten o'clock,
but told his brother next morning that they had
been to the Lagan bank, and, with a
presentiment, added, that he had somehow a doubt
of his friend. The next day was spent in labour;
when evening came on, the ill-favoured, Idle
apprentice was again at the uncle's cottage.
This time he was on a friendly errand. It
was Saturday night. Both lived up on the hill,
at the white cottages on the other side of the
Lagan; their way lay in the same direction; and
they might walk home together. Just before
starting, the uncle called his nephew privately
into the back kitchen, and there entrusted him
with a borrowed watch, which he was to take
home and restore to another member of the
family living at Miltown. This he put into his
fob; but he carried the other—the fatal watch—
in his waistcoat-pocket, conspicuous by a chain.

Thus the two men left the house together, the
hour being about half-past six o'clock. They
might have kept the high road all the way, which
would have taken them, by following a sort of
right angle, down to the bridge across the water,
and thence straight up to Miltown. But there
was a shorter cut through the fields, straight
to the winding edge of the river, thence along
the bank to the bridge, thence up to Miltown as
before. It saved a few minutes; but it led
eventually to a long long journey for both which
they never dreamed of when they left the
cottage door.

It was about half-past six. It had been
a beautiful day, and the evening was closing in
tranquilly. There was abundance of soft
twilight. The great aortas of Flaxopolis had ceased
to throb. They took their way, first, along the
high road for a hundred yards or so, during
which short span a neighbour coming home met
them, and wished them God speed. Another
neighbour standing at his door saw the pair
pass by, and watched them out of sight; for, at
the end of this scrap of high road they took a
sharp turn to the left, and struck into the green
fields, making for the river. That unconcerned
neighbour watching them out of sight, of all
things in the world, had least in his thoughts
that the low-browed slouching fellow carried at
that moment in his breast-pocket a huge round
stone, smooth as a cannon-ball, neatly tied up
in the end of a pocket-handkerchief—a simple
yet fearful instrument of destruction. The last
thing, too, he could have thought of on that
Saturday night, as he turned into his cottage
again, was, that he would never see that good
yeoman Wilgar alive again. The rest of that
"dark night's work" was dovetailed
together long afterwards. Many tongues joined in
telling the story. Another neighbour wandering
home across those green fields, met the low-
browed man walking away from the southward
—that is, in a direction which would lead him to
a large linen town, a few miles away. This, he
remembered, was at about half-past seven o'clock.

The scene changes to this linen town—
Lisburn—of a Saturday night; streets full,
shops open, and the thick manufacturing
miscellany pouring through, busy with Saturday
night's work. A smart flashy girl has driven in
with her sister on the family cart, and, among
other functions, has to visit a pawnbroker in
Bow-lane, bearing the significant name of Gamble.
In the street, lurking about dubiously, she
comes upon an old acquaintance, his dull heavy
features lighted up by a gas-lamp. This is Thomas
Idle, who greets her in a friendly way.
Possibly an ancient admirer. He pulls out a silver
watch, and is very anxious that she should step
up to the pawnbroker of the significant name.
By the lamplight a strange short dialogue
follows: the smart flashy girl wishing, with female
curiosity, to reach to the whole history of the
transaction. He tells her that the watch belongs
to many masters, shifting the names. Finally,
he breaks out with the real ownership, and
tells her that it is the Industrious apprentice's
own watch. The flashy girl then boldly declines
any meddling with the business. "What are
you afraid of?" says Thomas Idle, with a blind
infatuation scarcely paralleled in homicidal
annals; " of Charles Wilgar? He will never tell
of it, for he is lying in the Lagan." Scarcely
comprehending the force of this strange confession,
she went her way.

Later on, the scene is in the murky crowded
tabernacle of the pawnbroker with the significant