“A form unseen is pulling us behind,

    Threads turn to cords, and cords to cables strong,

    Till habit hath become as Destiny,

    Which drives us on, and shakes her scourge on high.”

    Isaac Williams.

Captain Carbonel lost no time after Judith Grey’s funeral in sending John Hewlett to his new master, Mr Jones. The place was the Carbonels’ old home, in a county far-away from Uphill. George had wished the lad to go to a cabinet-maker whom he knew at Minsterham, but he was convinced by the captain’s advice to let him be quite away from the assizes, which would not only be pain and shame to him, but would mark his name with the brand of the same kind as that of an informer. This Mr Jones was well-known to the Carbonel family as an excellent man—a churchwarden, and sure to care for the welfare, spiritual as well as bodily, of those commended to him.

And it happened, not unfortunately for John, that, in the captain’s handwriting, his rather uncommon name was read as Newlett, and for some time after he arrived he never found out the mistake, and was rather glad of it when he did so, since no one connected him with the rick-burner who gave evidence against his leader.

Dan himself came home to find that he was held in more utter disgrace than for all his former disreputable conduct, which only passed for good-fellowship. If he had been hanged, or even transported, he would only have been “poor Dan Hewlett,” and his wife would have had all the pity due to widowhood; but everybody fought shy of him, and the big lads hooted at him. He could not get work, Judith’s pension had failed, and they lived scantily on what Farmer Goodenough allowed Molly to earn, as an old hand, to be kept off the parish. Little Judith was apprenticed to Mrs Pearson, according to the old fashion which bound out pauper girls as apprentices to service, and which had one happy effect, namely, that they could not drift foolishly from one situation to another, though, in bad hands, they sometimes had much to suffer. But Mrs Pearson was a kind, conscientious mistress, and Judy was a good girl, so that all went well.

Dan slouched about, snared rabbits and hares, and drank up the proceeds thereof at little public-houses where he was not known, or where the company was past caring about his doings. At last, he was knocked down in the dark by the ma............