[Illustration: 021.jpg Where be us now?]

"No indeed, John; no old ash. Nor nothing else to my knowing; nor heard
nothing, save thee snoring."

"Watt a vule thee must be then, Jan; and me myzell no better. Harken,
lad, harken!"

We drew our horses up and listened, through the thickness of the air,
and with our hands laid to our ears. At first there was nothing to hear,
except the panting of the horses and the trickle of the eaving drops
from our head-covers and clothing, and the soft sounds of the lonely
night, that make us feel, and try not to think. Then there came a mellow
noise, very low and mournsome, not a sound to be afraid of, but to long
to know the meaning, with a soft rise of the hair. Three times it came
and went again, as the shaking of a thread might pass away into the
distance; and then I touched John Fry to know that there was something
near me.

"Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan! Vaine moozick as iver I 'eer. God bless the
man as made un doo it."

"Have they hanged one of the Doones then, John?"

"Hush, lad; niver talk laike o' thiccy. Hang a Doone! God knoweth, the
King would hang pretty quick if her did."

"Then who is it in the chains, John?"

I felt my spirit rise as I asked; for now I had crossed Exmoor so often
as to hope that the people sometimes deserved it, and think that it
might be a lesson to the rogues who unjustly loved the mutton they were
never born to. But, of course, they were born to hanging, when they set
themselves so high.

"It be nawbody," said John, "vor us to make a fush about. Belong to
t'other zide o' the moor, and come staling shape to our zide. Red Jem
Hannaford his name. Thank God for him to be hanged, lad; and good cess
to his soul for craikin' zo."

So the sound of the quiet swinging led us very modestly, as it came and
went on the wind, loud and low pretty regularly, even as far as the foot
of the gibbet where the four cross-ways are.

"Vamous job this here," cried John, looking up to be sure of it, because
there were so many; "here be my own nick on the post. Red Jem, too, and
no doubt of him; he do hang so handsome like, and his ribs up laike a
horse a'most. God bless them as discoovered the way to make a rogue so
useful. Good-naight to thee, Jem, my lad; and not break thy drames with
the craikin'."

John Fry shook his bridle-arm, and smote upon Smiler merrily, as he
jogged into the homeward track from the guiding of the body. But I was
sorry for Red Jem, a