rt. D'ye hear?'

John Willet looked at another man, as if he didn't know which was the
speaker, and muttered something about an ordinary every Sunday at two
o'clock.

'You won't be hurt I tell you, Jack--do you hear me?' roared Hugh,
impressing the assurance upon him by means of a heavy blow on the back.
'He's so dead scared, he's woolgathering, I think. Give him a drop of
something to drink here. Hand over, one of you.'

A glass of liquor being passed forward, Hugh poured the contents down
old John's throat. Mr Willet feebly smacked his lips, thrust his hand
into his pocket, and inquired what was to pay; adding, as he looked
vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of broken glass--

'He's out of his senses for the time, it's my belief,' said Hugh, after
shaking him, without any visible effect upon his system, until his keys
rattled in his pocket. 'Where's that Dennis?'

The word was again passed, and presently Mr Dennis, with a long cord
bound about his middle, something after the manner of a friar, came
hurrying in, attended by a body-guard of half-a-dozen of his men.

'Come! Be alive here!' cried Hugh, stamping his foot upon the ground.
'Make haste!'

Dennis, with a wink and a nod, unwound the cord from about his person,
and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, and round the
walls and cornice, with a curious eye; then shook his head.

'Move, man, can't you!' cried Hugh, with another impatient stamp of his
foot. 'Are we to wait here, till the cry has gone for ten miles round,
and our work's interrupted?'

'It's all very fine talking, brother,' answered Dennis, stepping towards
him; 'but unless--' and here he whispered in his ear--'unless we do it
over the door, it can't be done at all in this here room.'

'What can't?' Hugh demanded.

'What can't!' retorted Dennis. 'Why, the old man can't.'

'Why, you weren't going to hang him!' cried Hugh.

'No, brother?' returned the hangman with a stare. 'What else?'

Hugh made no answer, but snatching the rope from his companion's hand,
proceeded to bind old John himself; but his very first move was so
bungling and unskilful, that Mr Dennis entreated, almost with tears
in his eyes, that he might be permitted to perform the duty. Hugh
consenting, he achieved it in a twinkling.

'There,' he said, looking mournfully at John Willet, who displayed no
more emotion in his bonds than he had shown out of them. 'That's what I
call pretty and wor