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"Then," Acton said, "you can wait in my clerk's office until I'm ready to go over with you to Waynefleet's hotel." Hames went out, and Acton turned to Nasmyth. "He was hired with a few others to jump the claim he mentioned, and there was trouble over it.

Soon after the fall of Calais, De Rosne had seized the castles of Guynes and Hames, while De Mexia laid siege to the important stronghold of Ardres. The garrison, commanded by Count Belin, was sufficiently numerous and well supplied to maintain the place until Henry, whose triumph at La Fere could hardly be much longer delayed, should come to its relief.

Hames was, however, not readily traced; and when, on the following morning, they sat in Acton's office waiting his appearance, Nasmyth was conscious of a painful uncertainty. Acton, with a smile on his face, leaned back in his chair until Hames was shown in.

He watered them where a plume of thin vapor disclosed the whereabouts of a never-freezing spring which burbled softly between its low, ice-encrusted banks. It proved a difficult matter, crippled as he was, to handle the horses, but at length he got them into the stable, chinked the broken feed-boxes as best he could, and removed the bridles, hanging them upon the hames.

"There's many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the summer. There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts had to be herded on the hill if the crops were to come to anything.

A forty-dollar set of harness hung there: Carter's harness had chains instead of leather tugs, and would outwear them several times over. It was an orderly toolroom: the bridles occupied a row over the collars, hames and back-bands came next, and on the other side of the room, on six-inch spikes, hung extra clevises, buckles, straps, and such materials as accidents to farm machinery required.

Hames was a big, bronze-faced man, plainly dressed in city clothes, but there was, Nasmyth noticed, a trace of half-furtive uneasiness in his eyes. Acton looked up at him quietly, and let him stand for several moments. Then he waved his hand toward a chair. "Won't you sit down? We have got to have a talk," said Acton. "I'll come right to the point. You have have been buying land." Hames sat down.

It's unco easy for me to regaird wi' equanimity the loss o' a place I am on the point o' leavin' for the hame o' a' hames the dwellin' o' a' the loves, withoot the dim memory or foresicht o' which I'm thinkin' they maun be aboot the same thing we could never hae lo'ed this auld place as we du, an' whaur, ance I'm in, a'thing doon here maun dwindle ootworthied by reason o' the glory that excelleth I dinna mean the glory o' pearls an' gowd, or even o' licht, but the glory o' love an' trowth.

She blew her nose, she was crying, she knew. A double knock at the door brought my heart to a standstill. Lady Mary was right, he did care. It seemed hours before the telegram was brought to me. I hardly dared to open it. There is some happiness too great to bear. I opened it and read: Sara very ill. Come at once. "Nannie," I said, "I am going to Hames." "To-day?" she said.

Tom was glad enough to do this, and in a few minutes they were going back over the dark track Tom had come, the harness jingling from the horses' hames, and Mr. Blodgett trudging sturdily along by the animals' heads. They came to the top of the ridge from which the stalled car had last been seen by Tom. "There are the lights!" he cried. He was glad to see them.