them with you. It is written in God's Bible that sin is the transgression of the law.-Dear James, he also commits sin who breaks the law of the land, at least, he has no right to look to the law of the land for the protection of his property, if he has no scruple in breaking that law."

"But the hares and the pheasants are as much ours as the squire's," said James; "and when a poor man and his family are in want, have the great folks of the land any right to deny him a brace of birds, and to send him to prison if he helps himself to them now and then."-"We need only talk of what concerns ourselves, James," said Ruth, mildly. "We were not in want till you took to these unlawful ways. Don't talk, then, of our being in want, as your excuse. You were always in regular work, and went regularly to your work, till you took to turning night into day, and lying in bed half the morning after the fatigue of a sleepless night. I have heard my own poor mother say, that the worst of poaching is, that it is almost sure to lead to thieving. After a while a man gets out of the habit of going to an honest hard day's work, and when there are no hares to be had, perhaps he and his idle companions reason themselves into taking a sheep; and he that robs in a field soon scruples not to break open an outbuilding, and steal a sack of corn. Then he gets bold in crime, and says to himself, 'It can't be a greater sin to take money than to take corn, and I should not

take it if I did not want it; if such a farmer or such a gentleman is coming home from market or from his banker, why should he not give me some of his money? sure he does not want it so badly as I do ;' or with the same sort of wicked excuse to himself, he breaks open a dwelling-house in the dead of the night, and gropes his way up to the master's chamber: if he finds him asleep, and if he finds his gold without much of a search, he robs him while he sleeps, but if the master stirs or offers resistance, the robber says, 'Why do I let him have it in his power to hang me; so if he does not then strike a blow which may be a death-blow, the next robbery he commits, he takes fire-arms, and uses them, and thus robbery goes hand in hand with murder."

The words of Ruth to her husband were but as idle words, for he heeded them not.

CHAPTER IV.

"THIS is weary work!" said Ruth to herself, and laid down her sewing; "I only meither myself with my own thoughts, while I go on thinking them over and over, I get deeper and deeper into the tangles of them." She took up the light and went into the chamber where her little boy was locked fast in sweet sleep; the gentle sound of his healthy and regular breathing (for the door stood partly open) drew her thither. "I must not trouble his eyes with the flare of the candle," she said, "but I must look upon his innocent face;" so she put the candle upon the high chest of drawers, and sat down by the bed-side. The child was, in his features, strikingly like his father, but there was not the same bad spirit within to darken the tene

ment.

The evening had closed in black and stormy after a dismal day, but soon after midnight, the

* Perplex.

sharp cold east wind died away, and the air became warm and mild, and suited to the pleasant season of the year. Ruth perceived the change with delight, as gently unclosing the door, she stood in the little garden in front of the cottage, and listened for some sound of her husband's return. The softness of the air, and the sweet scent of the hawthorn and woodbine which came every now and then stealing upon it, tempted her to walk on to the little garden gate which opened upon the heath, and there she stood in deep thoughtfulness, unable, indeed, to shake off the weight of thought that oppressed her.

How happy she and her husband might have been together; how contented he had once seemed in their lowly cottage! His wages had never been high, but what with the garden, and the cow, and the pig, and the small sums she was able to earn, the rent had always been paid, and want had never been known. Things were sadly changed now; he scarcely ever brought her home any money for house-keeping, and the cow had been sold to pay the rent, and that year she could not afford to buy a pig. She had set the potatoes with her own hands, and managed to keep the whole garden in a sort of rough order; but another year, if James went on as he did, she could not tell how they were to live; and yet it would not do to think of the future; she had been thinking in too distrustful a spirit all the evening. Her duty—and so she had

tried to remind herself, only she fell back so often into the same train of thought,-her duty was to attend to calls of the present day, and to leave every event to God. She knew who had forbidden her to take any anxious thought for the morrow, and she felt that sufficient unto the day, is the evil thereof.

It was not, indeed, Ruth's disposition to look to the dark side of a subject, but to meet the trials of the present day resolutely, and to hope that on the morrow, the dismal prospect would clear up; but alas! memory came, and whispered how often she had hoped and been cruelly disappointed. It was at that very garden-gate she had stood with James, and his words had promised so fair, and he had seemed so convinced that the ways of godliness were those of pleasantness and peace.

The sweet breath of the woodbine and the hawthorn had that evening scented the air, and as they stood in peaceful silence, her hand drawn within his arm, they had listened together to the few gentle sounds which seemed to be born of quietness; the rippling gurgle of the brook in the green meadow under the copse wood behind the house, and the shivering rustle of the aspen leaves, and every now and then the bleat of a lamb, faint from its distance, in the uplands. Another sound now broke upon the stillness of the night. As Ruth leaned forward over the gate to hear more distinctly, she heard the light rumbling of a cart upon the