orchard. An old beggar came
limping by us, and wanted to share our covering. My companion sank right
under the blanket to peer at him through one of its holes. He stood
enormous above me in the moonlight, like an apparition touching earth and
sky.

'Cold, cold,' he whined: 'there's ne'er a worse off but there's a better
off. Young un!' His words dispersed the fancy that he was something
horrible, or else my father in disguise going to throw off his rags, and
shine, and say he had found me. 'Are ye one, or are ye two?' he asked.

I replied that we were two.

'Then I'll come and lie in the middle,' said he.

'You can't; there's no room,' I sang out.

'Lord,' said he, 'there's room for any reckoning o' empty stomachs in a
ditch.'

'No, I prefer to be alone: good-night,' said I.

'Why!' he exclaimed, 'where ha' you been t' learn language? Halloa!'

'Please, leave me alone; it's my intention to go to sleep,' I said, vexed
at having to conciliate him; he had a big stick.

'Oho!' went the beggar. Then he recommenced:

'Tell me you've stole nothing in your life! You've stole a gentleman's
tongue, I knows the ring o' that. How comes you out here? Who's your mate
there down below? Now, see, I'm going to lift my stick.'

At these menacing words the girl jumped out of the blanket, and I called
to him that I would rouse the farmer.

'Why . . . because I'm goin' to knock down a apple or two on your head?'
he inquired, in a tone of reproach. 'It's a young woman you've got there,
eh? Well, odd grows odder, like the man who turned three shillings into
five. Now, you gi' me a lie under your blanket, I 'll knock down a apple
apiece. If ever you've tasted gin, you 'll say a apple at night's a
cordial, though it don't intoxicate.'

The girl whispered in my ear, 'He's lame as ducks.' Her meaning seized me
at once; we both sprang out of the ditch and ran, dragging our blanket
behind us. He pursued, but we eluded him, and dropped on a quiet
sleeping-place among furzes. Next morning, when we took the blanket to
the farm-house, we heard that the old wretch had traduced our characters,
and got a breakfast through charging us with the robbery of the
apple-tree. I proved our innocence to the farmer's wife by putting down a
shilling. The sight of it satisfied her. She combed my hair, brought me a
bowl of water and a towel, and then gave us a bowl of milk and bread, and
dismissed us, telling me I had a fair face and dare-devil written