That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow, Better than words, no more assuage our woe; That hand outstretched from small but well-earned store Yield succour to the destitute no more. Yet art thou not all lost; through many an age Our joys in heaven, we hope to meet thee there." Thorne, in his tour of the Lea, was copying this inscription, when a couple of working men walked across the churchyard and read the lines with grave deliberation. "A very fair bit of poetry that," said one of them. "Yes," the other answered, "I'm blest if it isn't as good a bit as any in the churchyard-rather too long, though." CHAPTER VIII. A MOORLAND legend. REARIEST of all the spots upon dreary Quickmoor is the small town of Kingsford. Indeed it is not so much a town as a settlement, and its sombre character arises from the fact that it is a convict settlement. The surrounding prospects, to the rambler who has any sort of love for the beauties of Nature, cannot fail to please, though they are utterly destitute of the softer graces of an English landscape. The scenery is famous for its wildness, for its solitary expanses, for its rugged alternations of grassy waste and hills crowned with frowning blocks of granite. The Government, searching for a region as far removed as possible from the busy haunts of cheerful men, fixed upon Quickmoor, creating a double solitude, and calling it a convict establishment. Hither were brought criminals born, criminals bred, criminals by accident, criminals by election; criminals doomed never more to mingle with their fellow-men; criminals sentenced to varying terms of punishment; criminals who, coming forth repentant, should, spite of the difficulties which an imperfect penal and social system built up in their path, strive to lead a better life, and criminals in whom the iron of vice had been ineradicably welded by the very means which in others had brought forth fruits meet for repentance. Around the great central building there, planted on the barrenest part of the land, a small colony of necessity clustered, but there was not a house that did not indirectly reflect the character of the place. This was Kingsford, and no man of his own free will sojourned longer within its borders than absolute necessity demanded. This, I am well aware, ought to be a chapter recording the capture of trout. But the particular day which I selected for a visit to Quickmoor was a pronounced blank —a hot, bright, still day, with all the brooks low and clear. "Light another pipe, sir," said the old man, my guide and companion. "I'll tell you a story." "No, not fishing," he replied, "but about Quickmoor," Certain qualms of conscience about introducing the legend into this book I have overcome, and will re-tell it. It may serve to pass away an hour at luncheon-time for some unsuccessful sportsman doomed like myself to a blank day on Quickmoor. One raw winter's morning the dull level of Kingsford life was stirred to its depths. The well-known signal had gone forth that a prisoner or prisoners had escaped. Warders armed with carbines marched forth in twos and threes; the few inhabitants who were not in the immediate pay of the Quickmoor prison aided in the hue and cry, and suspended their ordinary avocations to take part in the chase. Not many years before a notorious criminal had run away, and barbarously murdered a shepherd for the sake of the clothes without which he could never have got clear of the country. Self-interest, if no other motive existed, would therefore prompt these people to become amateur man-hunters. Hence, within a few moments of the gun-fire which gave the alarm, Kingsford was thrown into a state of intense excitement. Boys were rushing hither and thither to bring in with all haste the rough, wiry little Quickmoor ponies from the pastures and outhouses; women assembled in the single thoroughfare of the village, questioning and magnifying, as they gathered or imparted intelligence; the grand entrance to the huge prison was surrounded by eager enquirers bent upon cross-examining any of the officials who might issue forth. Within an incredibly short space of time the warders were scouring the moors, north, south, east, and west, under orders to bring in the runaways dead or alive. Every gully, every ravine, every boulder or tor likely to afford hiding, was ransacked with prompt completeness; every shepherd's hut on the hills, and every lonely vehicle on the highway, arriving from or passing down into the outer world was overhauled. The search was rendered the more arduous by the dense fog which wrapped everything in hoary, chilling gloom. At the Kingsford Arms, the one hotel in the place, the true cause of the alarm was soon ascertained. The convicts had been marched out as usual to the occupations of the day-some working at the buildings which were being perpetually added to the main establishment, others at reclaiming the adjacent moorland for agricultural purposes. The warders were posted in their proper strength at the ordinary posts, and the silent labour of the convicts was proceeding when, as so often happens in those strange regions, a sudden mist arose, to develop swiftly into an impenetrable fog. This was the opportunity for which the discontented and insubordinate among the convicts had waited, probably for years, and now was their time. Under cover of the friendly veil, three of the building gang contrived to elude their keepers, and one man in the field, taking advantage of the momentary surprise with which the officials in that corner of the settlement had been thrown, on hearing the signal, was equally fortunate. * * * * * The supposition is that a convict is known only as a number, as an unknown quantity of the human family; but the actual names of the missing men were, in the course of an hour, being whispered in the bar-parlour of the Kingsford Arms. Here a courageous sportsman, making the hotel his head-quarters for the sake of the snipe and occasional blackcock and woodcock to be had on the moorland; a couple of commercial travellers, waiting for the vehicle which would shortly bear them into more welcome beats; and a warder or two off duty, were assembled, discussing the event of the day, and speculating upon the probable results. One other member of this company has yet to be mentioned, though perhaps we should take her presence as a matter of course. It was Miss Western, the hotel bar-maid, waitress, and book-keeper, a reserved, ladylike, irreproachable person, who had fulfilled the multifarious and not always pleasant duties of her post with faultless faithfulness -courteous to all, familiar with none. For once, however, Miss Western's normal taciturnity was broken: there was no questioner more eager than she, until the full details had been told. It was to her that the prison official, over his luncheon-beer, gave the names of the escaped convicts, with such incidental additions respecting their crimes, characters, and behaviour during imprisonment, as would be naturally |