with that ther' young woman, in that ther' pickle!' returned the
waggoner.

Evan made an appeal to his reason, but finding that impregnable, he
pulled out his scanty purse to guarantee his sincerity with an offer of
pledgemoney. The waggoner waved it aside. He wanted no money, he said.

'Look heer,' he went on; 'if you're for a start, I tells ye plain, I
chucks that ther' young woman int' the road.'

Evan bade him not to be a brute.

'Nark and crop!' the waggoner doggedly ejaculated.

Very much surprised that a fellow who appeared sound at heart, should
threaten to behave so basely, Evan asked an explanation: upon which the
waggoner demanded to know what he had eyes for: and as this query failed
to enlighten the youth, he let him understand that he was a man of family
experience, and that it was easy to tell at a glance that the complaint
the young woman laboured under was one common to the daughters of Eve.
He added that, should an emergency arise, he, though a family man, would
be useless: that he always vacated the premises while those incidental
scenes were being enacted at home; and that for him and George Stokes to
be left alone with the young woman, why they would be of no more service
to her than a couple of babies newborn themselves. He, for his part, he
assured Evan, should take to his heels, and relinquish waggon, and
horses, and all; while George probably would stand and gape; and the end
of it would be, they would all be had up for murder. He diverged from
the alarming prospect, by a renewal of the foregoing alternative to the
gentleman who had constituted himself the young woman's protector. If he