"As for Mulready I should like to burn his mill down, or to break his neck. I hate him: it's bad enough to be a tyrant; but to be a tyrant and a hypocrite, too, is horrible. Well, at any rate he shan't lord it over me;" and so at last Ned dropped off to sleep.

He was still soundly asleep when Bill Swinton came in to wake him. It was half past six, a dull October morning, with a dreary drizzling rain. Bill brought with him a mug of hot tea and some thick slices of bread and butter. Ned got up and shook himself.

"What o'clock is it, Bill?"

"Half past six--the chaps went off to t' mill an hour gone; oi've kept some tea hot for ee."

"Thank you, Bill, my head aches, and so do all my bones, and I feel as if I hadn't been asleep all night, although, indeed, I must have slept quite as long as usual. Can't I have a wash?"

"Yes," Bill said, "thou canst come to our place; but thou had best take thy breakfast whilst it be hot. It will waken thee up like."

Ned drank the tea and ate a slice of bread and butter, and felt refreshed thereat. Then he ran with Bill to his cottage and had a wash, and then started for the town. It was eight o'clock when he reached home. Abijah was at the door, looking down the road as he came up.