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It is run for the benefit of those who ride in it, not for the company's. It not only puts them off properly; it waits for them, if they are not there. The conductor knows that they will come. They are men, mostly, with small homes beyond the bridge, whose work takes them down town to the markets, the Post-office, and the busy marts of the city long before cockcrow.

The young beech-leaves glittered, pools of rain-water made the roadways laugh, the grass-banks under hedges rolled their interwoven weeds in cascades of many-shaded green to right and left of the pair of dappled ponies, and a squirrel crossed ahead, a lark went up a little way to ease his heart, closing his wings when the burst was over, startled black-birds, darting with a clamour like a broken cockcrow, looped the wayside woods from hazel to oak-scrub; short flights, quick spirts everywhere, steady sunshine above.

The latter, it seemed, was not well kept his room that day. The laird of Glenfernie went about, indeed, but never once went near the waterside.... And yet, at eve, the master of the Seawing, riding in the harbor, took the resolution to sail by cockcrow. The sun went down with red and gold, in a winter splendor. Dark night followed, but, late, there rose a moon.

The streets and alleys were empty, the rain coursed down all the gutters of the steep little town; its music and their own plashy steps were all they could hear. Knocking at a little barred door in Litany Row, they were admitted by a wrinkled old woman with wet eyes. "Mother," said the fellow, "this boy is no boy, but a maid with whom I intend to marry at cockcrow.

So at cockcrow next morning Nick slipped out of his straw bed, into his clothes, and down the winding stair, while his parents were still asleep in the loft, and, sousing his head in the bucket at the well, began his work before the old town clock in the chapel tower had yet struck four. The rushes had not been changed since Easter, and were full of dust and grease from the cooking and the table.

So had he slept for nights while the inexorable master of his days, with no companion but his flute, drank and drank until dawn, climbing up to bed at cockcrow sometimes drunk and morose, sometimes a grim and conscious master of the bottle. Carl had been drinking wildly, heavily for months.

Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech. Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from the dark valley below the windows.

He said with slow contempt, "I grant that it is well fitting the Gainer's deeds that his men should flinch from the light " "Misgreet me not," the mocking voice interrupted. "Before cockcrow we shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to his camp."

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome cockcrow, and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened the door and ran down the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and threw back the massive bolts. But the door would not move.

The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter miss for a good deal." Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires, so said her neighbors.