work-basket, which had been overturned in the scuffle.

Meanwhile Louie rushed upstairs, stumbling over and tearing her
finery, the convulsive sobs beginning again as soon as the tension
of her aunt's hated presence was removed.

At the top she ran against something in the dark. It was David, who
had been hanging over the stairs, listening. But she flung past
him.

'What's t' matter, Louie?' he asked in a loud whisper through the
door she shut in his face; 'what's th' owd crosspatch been slangin
about?'

But he got no answer, and he was afraid of being caught by Aunt
Hannah if he forced his way in. So he went back to his own room,
and closed, without latching, his door. He had had an inch of dip
to go to bed with, and had spent that on reading. His book was a
battered copy of 'Anson's Voyages,' which also came from 'Lias's
store, and he had been straining his eyes over it with enchantment.
Then had come the sudden noise upstairs and down, and his candle
and his pleasure had gone out together. The heavy footsteps of his
uncle and aunt ascending warned him to keep quiet. They turned into
their room, and locked their door as their habit was. David
noiselessly opened his window and looked out.

A clear moonlight reigned outside. He could distinguish the rounded
shapes, the occasional movements of the sheep in their pen to the
right of the farmyard. The trees in the field threw long shadows
down the white slope; to his left was the cart-shed with its black