said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on.

The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went
on with the next stanza as requested:-

'My tools are but common ones,
Simple shepherds all -
My tools are no sight to see:
A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,
Are implements enough for me!'

Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the
stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all
started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to
the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding
him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling.

'O, he's the--!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the
name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at
Casterbridge jail to-morrow--the man for sheep-stealing--the poor clock-
maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to
do--Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of
Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying
the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack
among 'em. He' (and they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly
trade) 'is come from up the country to do it because there's not enough
to do in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now our own
county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the
prison wall.'