* * * * *

Next morning, soon after daybreak, all Wythburn was astir. People were
hurrying about from door to door and knocking up the few remaining
sleepers. The voices of the men sounded hoarse in the mist of the
early morning; the women held their heads together and talked in
whispers. An hour or two later two or three horsemen drove up to the
door of the village inn. There was a bustle within; groups of boys
were congregated outside. Something terrible had happened in the
night. What was it?

Willie Ray, who had left home at early dawn, came back to Shoulthwaite
Moss with flushed face and quick-coming breath. Ralph and his mother
were at breakfast. His father, who had been at market the preceding
day, had not risen.

"Dreadful, dreadful!" cried Willy. "Old Wilson is dead. Found dead in
the dike between Smeathwaite and Fornside. Murdered, no doubt, for his
wages; nothing left about him."

"Heaven bless us!" cried Mrs. Ray, "to kill a poor man for his week's
wage!" And she sank back into the chair from which she had risen in
her amazement.

"They've taken his body to the Red Lion, and the coroner is there from
Gaskarth."

Willy was trembling in every limb.