When Paul parted from Natt at the station on Saturday night, he had told the stableman to meet him with the trap at the same spot and at the same hour on Wednesday. Since receiving these instructions, however, Natt had, as we have seen, arrived at conclusions of his own respecting certain events. The futility of doing as he had been bidden began to present itself to his mind with peculiar force. What was the good of going to the station for a man who was not coming by the train? What was the use of pretending to bring home a person who had never been away? These and other equivocal problems defied solution when Natt essayed them.

He revolved the situation fully on his way home from Mr. Bonnithorne's, and decided that to go to the station that night at eight o'clock would be only a fine way of making a fool of a body. But when he reached the stable, and sat down to smoke, and saw the hour approaching, his instinct began to act automatically, and in sheer defiance of the thing he called his reason. In short, Natt pulled off his coat and proceeded to harness the mare.

Then it was that, relieved of the weight of abstract questions, he made two grave discoveries. The first was that the horse bore marks of having been driven in his absence; the next, that the harness was not hanging precisely on those hooks where he had last placed it. And when he drew out the trap he saw that the tires of the wheels were still crusted with unmelted snow.

These concrete issues finally banished the discussion of general principles. Natt had not entirely accounted for the strange circumstances when he jumped into his seat and drove away. But the old idea of Paul's dubious conduct was still fermenting; the froth and bubbles were still rising.

Natt had not gone half-way to the station when he almost leaped out of the trap at the sudden advent of an original thought: The trap had been driven out before! He had not covered a mile more before that thought had annexed another: And along this road, too! After this the sequence of ideas was swift. In less than half a league, Natt had realized that Paul Ritson himself had driven the mare to the station in order that he might be there to come home at eight o'clock, and thus complete the deception which he had practiced on gullible and slow-witted persons. But in his satisfaction at this explanation Natt overlooked the trifling difficulty of how the trap had been got home again.

Driving up into the station, he was greeted by a flyman waiting for hire.

"Bad on the laal mare, ma man—two sec journeys in ya half day. I reckon tha knows it's been here afore?"

Natt's face broadened into a superior smile, which seemed to desire his gratuitous informant to tell him something he didn't know. This unspoken request was about to be gratified.

"Dusta ken who came down last?"

Natt waved his hand in silent censure of so much unnecessary zeal, and passed on.

Promptly as the clock struck eight, the London train drew up at the station, and a minute afterward Paul Ritson came out. "Here he be, of course," thought Natt.

Paul was in great spirits. His face wore the brightest smile, and his voice had the cheeriest ring. His clothes, seen by the lamp, looked a little draggled and dirty.

He swung himself into the trap, took the driver's seat and the reins and rattled along with cheerful talk.

It was months since Natt had witnessed such an access of geniality on Paul's part.

"Too good to be true," thought Natt, who, in his own wise way, was silently making a study in histrionics.

"Anything fresh while I've been away?" asked Paul.

"Humph!" said Natt.

"Nothing new? Nobody's cow calved? The mare not lost her hindmost shoe—nothing?" asked Paul, and laughed.

"I know no more nor you," said Natt, in a grumpy tone.

Paul looked at him and laughed again. Not to-night were good spirits like his to be quenched by a servant's ill humor.

They drove some distance without speaking, the silence being broken only by Paul's coaxing appeals to the old mare to quicken the pace that was carrying him to somebody who was waiting at the vicarage.

Natt recovered from his natural dudgeon at an attempt to play upon him, and began to feel the humor of the situation. It was good sport, after all—this little trick of Master Paul. And the best of it was that nobody saw through it but Natt himself. Natt began to titter and look up significantly out of his sleepy eyes into Paul's face. Paul glanced back with a look of bewilderment; but of course that was only a part of the game.

"Keep it up," thought Natt; "how we are doing 'em!"

The landscape lying south was a valley, with a double gable of mountains at the top; the mill stood on a knoll two miles further up, and on any night but the darkest its black outlines could be dimly seen against the sky that crept down between these fells. There was no moon visible, but the moon's light was behind the clouds.

"What has happened to the mill?" said Paul, catching sight of the dismantled mass in the distance.

"Nowt since Saturday neet, as I've heard on," said Natt.

"And what happened then?"

"Oh, nowt, nowt—I's warrant not," said Natt, with a gurgling titter.

Paul looked perplexed. Natt had been drinking, nothing surer.

"Why, lad, the wheel is gone—look!"

"I'll not say but it is. We know all about that, we do!"

Paul glanced down again. Liquor got into the brains of some folk, but it had gone into Natt's face. With what an idiotic grin he was looking into one's eyes!

But Paul's heart was full of happiness. His bosom's lord sat lightly on its throne. Natt's face was excruciatingly ridiculous, and Paul laughed at the sight of it. Then Natt laughed, and they both laughed together, each at, neither with, the other. "I don't know nothing, I don't. Oh, no!" chuckled Natt, inwardly. Once he made the remark aloud.

When they came to the vicarage Paul drew up, threw the reins to Natt, and got down.

"Don't wait for me," he said; "drive home."

Natt drove as far homeward as the Flying Horse, and then turned in there for a crack, leaving the trap in the road. Before he left the inn, a discovery yet more astounding, if somewhat less amusing, was made by his swift and subtle intellect.