Starvecrow Farm

Tyson came out of the adventure a wiser and perhaps a better man. For on his return from the north he found it hard to free himself from the charge of complicity in the acts of those who had used his house; nor did he succeed until he had lain some weeks in Appleby gaol. He would fain have avenged himself on Bess, but for reasons to be stated, he could not enjoy this satisfaction. And his neighbours sent him to Coventry. Had he been a strong man he might have defied them and public opinion. But he was only a braggart, and that which must have embittered many, tamed him. He turned to his wife for comfort, sought his home more than before, and gradually settled down into a tolerable citizen and a high Tory.

Bess saved herself by her own wit and courage. The Monday's light saw her dragged to Kendal prison, where they were not so gentle with her as they had been with Henrietta. Her story went with her, and, "They say you stole a child," the little girl murmured, standing at her knee and staring at her, "and 'll be hanged at the March fair."

"Not I," said Bess. "It's almost a pity, too, ain't it? There'd be a fine crowd to see!"

The child's eyes sparkled.

"Yes," she said. "There'd be a crowd, too."

But Bess played a fine stroke. She sent for her rival on the Friday, and Henrietta, twenty-four hours betrothed, and very far from unhappy, took that road once more, and went to her.

"I saved you," said Bess, with coolness. "Yes, I did. Don't deny it! Now do you save me."

And Henrietta moved heaven and earth and Anthony Clyne to save her. She succeeded. Bess went abroad-to join Walterson, it was rumoured. If so, she returned without him, for on the old miser's death she appeared on Windermere, sold Starvecrow Farm and all its belongings, and removed to the south, but to what part is not known, nor are any particulars of her later fortunes within reach. Some said that she played a part in the great riots at Bristol twelve years later, but the evidence is inconclusive, and dark women possessing a strain of gipsy blood are not uncommon.

Nor are women with a sharp tongue and a warm heart. Yet when Mrs. Gilson died in the year of those very riots, and at a good age, there was a gathering to bury her in Troutbeck graveyard as great as if she had been a Lowther. The procession, horse and foot, was a mile long. And when those who knew her least wondered whence all these moist eyes and this flocking to do honour to a woman who had been quick of temper and rough of tongue-ay, were it to Squire Bolton of Storrs, or the rich Mr. Rogers himself-there was one who came a great distance to the burying who could have solved the riddle.

It was Henrietta.

THE END