men. Humph! could they have overheard us, think you?"

"If men whose business it is to overhear their neighbours--yes; but not
if they be honest men," answered Aram, in one of those shrewd remarks
which he often uttered, and which seemed almost incompatible with the
tenor of the quiet and abstruse pursuits that he had adopted, and that
generally deaden the mind to worldly wisdom.

They had now approached the strangers, who, however, appeared mere rustic
clowns, and who pulled off their hats with the wonted obeisance of their
tribe.

"Hollo, my men," said the Squire, assuming his magisterial air, for the
mildest Squire in Christendom can play the Bashaw, when he remembers he
is a Justice of the Peace. "Hollo! what are you doing here this time of
day? you are not after any good, I fear."

"We ax pardon, your honour," said the elder clown, in the peculiar accent
of the country, "but we be come from Gladsmuir; and be going to work at
Squire Nixon's at Mow-hall, on Monday; so as I has a brother living on
the green afore the Squire's, we be a-going to sleep there to-night and
spend the Sunday, your honour."

"Humph! humph! What's your name?"

"Joe Wood, your honour, and this here chap is, Will Hutchings."

"Well, well, go along with you," said the Squire: "And mind what you are
about. I should not be surprised if you snare one of Squire Nixon's hares
by the way."