we can this devil's night."

"Got anything to drink?"

"Deuce a swipe of grog have I. But I have got some real Barret's twist,
that never paid duty as I know'd on, so just smoke a pipe before we
begin talking, and show you aint vexed."

"I'd sooner have had a drop of grog, such a night as this."

"We must do as the Spaniards do, when they can't get anything," said
Lee; "go without."

They both lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for a few minutes,
till Lee resumed:--

"If the witches weren't all dead, there would be some of them abroad
to-night; hear that?"

"Only a whimbrel, isn't it?" said George.

"That's something worse than a whimbrel, I'm thinking," said the other.
"There's some folks don't believe in witches and the like," he
continued; "but a man that's seen a naked old hag of a gin ride away on
a myall-bough, knows better."

"Lord!" said George. "I shouldn't have thought you'd have believed in
the like of that--but I do--that old devil's dam, dame Parker, that
lives alone up in Hatherleigh Wood, got gibbering some infernal nonsense
at me the other day, for shooting her black cat. I made the cross