The Leather Plater. 



and his own cursed pride had made him what he now was, and 

 must remain to the end of his life a broken-hearted, childless, and 

 lonely old man. The little orphan was left in charge of Radford's 

 wife. From the day that his daughter's corpse entered the Hall until 

 the day of the funeral, the old father never left his study by day, and 

 was seen by no one save the servant who carried him up his solitary 

 meals. But at nightfall he would steal to the room where his dead 

 daughter lay, and sit for hours gazing on those calm, lovely features, 

 whose beauty even the hand of death had no power to mar. He 

 and Radford were the only mourners who attended the funeral ; 

 and as they walked after the corpse to the little village church (for 

 he would have no vain display), Jack could scarcely believe it possible 

 that six short days could have wrought so great a change in any 

 man. Instead of the tall, great, iron-framed man, which he was 

 but a week ago, he was now only a shattered, tottering wreck of his 

 former self, and the agony of mind which he had suffered during 

 that period, appeared to have added twenty years to his life. After 

 the funeral, he called Radford into the study, and warning him 

 that it was the last time that his daughter's name should ever pass 

 his lips, gave him a cheque for three thousand pounds. With one 

 thousand of this Jack was to leave the neighbourhood, taking the 

 little Annie with him, and settle on a farm in a distant county ; the 

 other two thousand were to be invested, and the interest applied 

 towards the maintenance of the child till she came of age, when 

 the principal was to be paid over to her. No persuasion could ever 

 induce him to see his dead daughter's child. 



Jack happened to hear of this form at Holliwell, and as he was 

 always of a reserved misanthropical turn, the locality just suited him. 

 He took it on a twenty-one years' lease, renewable at the end of 

 the term, and left Yorkshire at once with his wife and little Annie. 

 He had no children of his own, and therefore took a double plea- 

 sure and pride in the rearing of his little ward. His old master, at 

 the time Jack lived with him, was one of the hardest and boldest 

 men across country, but he never saw the hounds again after his 

 daughter's death. The day before Radford left he sent for him and 



