wasn' but a poor, ha'f-baked shammick, he'd ha' killed that wife o'
his afore this."

"Naybours, I'd as lief you didn't mention it," appealed
These-an'-That, huskily.

"I'm afeard you'm o' no account, These-an'-That: but sam-sodden, if I
may say so," the drover observed.

"Put in wi' the bread, an' took out wi' the cakes," suggested Eli.

"Wife!--a pretty loitch, she an' the whole kit, up there!" went on
the market-woman. "If you durstn't lay finger 'pon your wedded wife,
These-an'-That, but let her an' that long-legged gamekeeper turn'ee
to doors, you must be no better'n a worm,--that's all I say."

I saw the man's face twitch as she spoke of the gamekeeper. But he
only answered in the same dull way.

"I'd as lief you didn' mention it, friends,--if 'tis all the same."


His real name was Tom Warne, as I learnt from Eli afterwards; and he
lived at St. Kit's, a small fruit-growing hamlet two miles up the
river, where his misery was the scandal of the place. The very
children knew it, and would follow him in a crowd sometimes, pelting
him with horrible taunts as he slouched along the road to the kitchen
garden out of which he made his living. He never struck one; never
even answered; but avoided the school-house as he would a plague; and
if he saw the Parson coming would turn a mile out of his road.