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said after all he couldn’t have exemption to be a half-timer.”
    â€œOh? Why were that?”
    â€œNay, I couldn’t right make it out,” said Emily.
    This might be true, but it might more probably be an attempt to conceal and diminish the reading trouble. It was Emily’s habit thus to try to hide Wilfred’s defects and peccadilloes from her husband. Simon knew this habit all too well; it maddened him. But now that Wilfred would no longer cause this trouble, he forgave Emily, smiled lovingly at her and said no more.
    As the evening wore on and darkness fell, Emily became very uneasy about her son. She went to the door and stood gazing out into the dark, calling “Wilfred! Wilf!” in her soft tones. The pathos of this appeal which could never be answered, and the look of her perplexed eyes, usually so clear, struck Simon to the heart as he went to console her.
    â€œSit down, love. He’ll come in when he’s hungry.”
    â€œBut where can he be? You didn’t see him, did you?”
    â€œI told you, no.”
    â€œHappen he’s afraid to come now because he thinks you’ll scold him for being late.”
    â€œHappen he is,” said Simon gravely, nodding.
    After some repetitions of this scene Simon sighed and took down his jacket.
    â€œI’ll go out and have a look for him,” he said kindly.
    â€œThank you, thank you,” said Emily, softly wailing. “You’re a good father to him, Simon.”
    To search these miles of rolling moorland was a difficult task at any time, in the dark almost impossible. Though Simon knew the moors well, nobody would be surprised by his lack of success in a night search. He tramped about, however, to give an air of verisimilitude to his proceedings, and as the night turned wet and wild, rain on his shouldersand peaty mud on his boots lent support to the tale he would have to tell. It occurred to him to conceal Wilfred’s body, though not too deeply; a delay in its discovery, he thought, a little mystery, would be useful in clouding the true course of events. Dragging the body behind a rock, he covered it with earth and bracken. Brearley’s body, since it lay on the stretch of moor in Brearley’s care, he thought it safe to leave exposed.
    He returned home to find Brearley’s two sons in his kitchen, making anxious enquiries about their father. Had Uncle Simon seen him?
    â€œNo. But I shouldn’t worry yet. He’ll be out after poachers,” said Simon. “Tell you what,” he added as the boys’ faces remained troubled: “If he isn’t back by morning, I’ll go down to Marthwaite and tell the police. He might have met up with Wilfred—one of them might have had an accident, and the other not like to leave him, you know. Aye, we’ll get the police to search.”
    This plan was carried out next morning, neither of the missing persons having returned. Not only police, but unofficial Marthwaite men, in instinctive goodwill, took part in the search. These latter turned first to Brearley’s beat, for they thought his disappearance more serious than that of an irresponsible boy, who might merely have run away and be in hiding. They soon found the dead gamekeeper, and observed that he was not carrying a gun. The police, to Simon’s (concealed) chagrin, found Wilfred sooner than he had hoped, for one of them perceived the metal tips of Wilfred’s clogs glittering in the sunlight to which the stormy night had given place, and the body was unearthed.
    â€œFancy leaving his feet uncovered!” said a young policeman. “Seems daft to me.”
    â€œMurderer didn’t know he’d left feet uncovered. Lad was buried in the dark, that’s what it means,” deduced the sergeant.
    â€œAye, it would seem so,” agreed Simon with a puzzled look.
    â€œHow do you see it, then, Mr Emmett?” asked the sergeant.
    â€œBrearley caught a