There is nothing further left to be told of this story of the village of Bullhampton and its Vicar beyond what may be necessary to satisfy the reader as to the condition and future prospects of the Brattle family. The writer of these pages ventures to hope that whatever may have been the fate in the readers’ mind of that couple which are about to settle themselves peaceably at Dunripple, and to wait there in comfort till their own time for reigning shall have come, some sympathy may have been felt with those humbler personages who have lived with orderly industry at the mill,—as, also, with those who, led away by disorderly passions, have strayed away from it, and have come back again to the old home.

For a couple of days after the return of the miller with his daughter and son, very little was said about the past;—very little, at least, in which either the father or Sam took any part. Between the two sisters there were no doubt questions and answers by the hour together as to every smallest detail of the occurrences at Salisbury. And the mother almost sang hymns of joy over her child, in that the hour which she had so much dreaded had passed by. But the miller said not a word;—and Sam was almost equally silent. “But it be all over, Sam?” asked his mother, anxiously one day. “For certain sure it be all over now?”

“There’s one, mother, for whom it ain’t all over yet;—poor devil.”

“But he was the—murderer, Sam.”

“So was t’other fellow. There weren’t no difference. If one was more spry to kill t’old chap than t’other, Acorn was the spryest. That’s what I think. But it’s done now, and there ain’t been much justice in it. As far as I sees, there never ain’t much justice. They was nigh a-hanging o’ me; and if those chaps had thought o’ bringing t’old man’s box nigh the mill, instead of over by t’old woman’s cottage, they would a hung me;—outright. And then they was twelve months about it! I don’t think much on ’em.” When his mother tried to continue the conversation,—which she would have loved to do with that morbid interest which we always take in a matter which has been nearly fatal to us, but from which we have escaped,—Sam turned into the mill, saying that he had had enough of it, and wouldn’t have any more.

Then, on the third day, a report of the trial in a county newspaper reached them. This the miller read all through, painfully, from the beginning to the end, omitting no detail of the official occurrences. At last, when he came to the account of Sam’s evidence, he got up from the chair on which he was sitting close to the window, and striking his fist upon the table, made his first and last comment upon the trial. “It was well said, Sam. Yes; though thou be’est my own, it was well said.” Then he put the paper down and walked out of doors, and they could see that his eyes were full of tears.

But from that time forth there came a great change in his manner to his youngest daughter. “Well, Carry,” he would say to her in the morning, with as much outward sign of affection as he ever showed to any one; and at night, when she came and stood over him before he lifted his weary limbs out of his chair to take himself away to his bed, he turned his forehead to her to be kissed, as he did to that better daughter who had needed no forgiveness from him. Nevertheless, they who knew him,—and there were none who knew him better than Fanny did,—were aware that he never for a moment forgot the disgrace which had fallen upon his household. He had forgiven the sinner, but the shame of the sin was always on him; and he carried himself as a man who was bound to hide himself from the eyes of his neighbours because there had come upon him a mis............