Is she well--my good Sarah Moore?'
'Mother died four years ago, sir,' murmured Stephen, unable to say any
more.
'Poor boy!' said the young lady on the sofa. 'Father, is there anything
we can do for him?'
'That is what I am going to hear, my child,' replied Mr. Lockwood.
'Stephen has not come over the hills without some errand. Now, my boy,
speak out plainly and boldly, and let me hear what has brought you to
your mother's old master.'
Thus encouraged, Stephen, with the utmost simplicity and frankness,
though with fewer words than Martha would have put into the narrative,
told Mr. Lockwood the whole history of his life; to which the clergyman
listened with ever-increasing interest, as he noticed how the boy was
telling all the truth, and nothing but the truth, even to his joining
Black Thompson in poaching. When he had finished, Mr. Lockwood went to
a large cabinet in the room, and, bringing out a bundle of old yellow
documents, soon found among them the paper James Fern had spoken of on
his death-bed. It was written by the clergyman living in Longville at the
time of old Martha Fern's death, to certify that she had settled, and
maintained her settlement on the hillside, without paying rent, or having
her fences destroyed, for upwards of twenty years, and that the land was
her own by the usages of the common.
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