saw not Anne's sympathising face at the window or Frances' tearful one; he seemed to give a wistful side-look-as well as the jolting of the cart on the hard gravel would allow-at the comfortable home he was leaving for the Barrack yard, and his old surly companions of the canine species he had so often fought and won many a hard earned battle with, for Bob, though not a savage dog, never allowed a liberty to be taken with him without resenting it. CHAPTER X. JANE. "Oh, memory, creature of the past! I spread my fingers to the sun, Yet oh! that age might see undone, ANON. MRS. Marks had returned home. Her mother was dead, and she had brought back Jane as she had threatened, much to Matthew's intense disgust. He was afraid of his wife's tongue, but had been so long accustomed to hear it going, that he could not understand a woman who could keep hers quiet, and sit the whole day long by the fireside,scarcely saying a word, in his own favourite corner too, seldom lifting her eyes from her knitting. As he watched the progress of the socks she was making, he vowed in his own mind never to wear them when they were finished, believing as many of the ignorant in his class of life do, that they would be bewitched, and cause him to meet with some harm, perhaps fulfil Goody Grey's prophecy that some one in the cottage was going to die. He found it more difficult than ever to resist the temptation of going to the "Brampton Arms," now that his home was even more uncomfortable than it used to be. How could he seat himself at the other corner of the fireside, and smoke his pipe, with his sister-in-law's eyes so constantly and intently fixed on him? Matthew longed to see Goody Grey to ask for a new charm to spirit away Jane and her unholy presence, which was a constant irritation to him. Meanwhile he had twice tried the effect of the charm and each time apparently without the slightest success; as not only had Mrs. Marks eyes, but her tongue also, flashed ten thousand furies at his extraordinary silence, while Jane, to whom during the storm he looked for sympathy, sat perfectly heedless, and mindful only of her dreadful knitting. William Hodge was still with the Marks', when he heard of the poaching affray and its consequences. His mind was at once filled with alarm, and he determined on going into Standale. What if his son should be one of the men taken, and now lodged in the jail there? Hodge kept very quiet at first, and talked it over with Mrs. Marks, -who had returned a few days after, and at length made up his mind to go to the town and gain a sight of the two men; but this was easier said than done, he had to wait quietly until they were brought up before the magistrates; when he returned to the cottage with the satisfactory intelligence that neither bore the slightest resemblance to his son Tom. Still he was more certain than ever that Tom was down there, for on mentioning his name casually to the landlord of the inn where he had put up, a man seated in the bar had turned round suddenly, eyed him keenly, and asked him to join him in a glass.' This, Hodge, who had his wits about him, was not slow to do, and both played at cross questions with the other, and tried to find out where each came from, and where bound to; but each proved a match for his fellow in cunning and sharp-sightedness, and they parted mutually dissatisfied, certain in their own minds that each could have revealed something of interest in which they both took part, had he so willed it. A few days after Hodge's return, as he was going across the fields, he again met with his acquaintance of the inn, who passed him close by without renewing their former intimacy, indeed, without a word or greeting of any kind, as though they were strangers, and now met for the first time. Hodge thought he must have been mistaken in his man; but no-a second and yet a third time, he met him on different days; and now Hodge was convinced he was right-they |