past month.

"Oh," said he, "pity on us you saw not the fourth rogue dangle--be
hanged to him that he had no name! I tell you, Master Dexter, it almost
made me creep to see all they did to make an end of him. First of
all--"

"Hold thy peace, beast!" roared I. "Keep it to thyself. But tell me,
what was he like?"

"If I be a beast," said he, mightily offended, "thou art like to hear
that better from anyone else."

"Your pardon," said I, "but my imagination is quick, and your horrible
story well-nigh made me ill."

He took this as a mighty compliment, and smoothed down forthwith.

"Ay, ay," said he, "some stomachs are squeamish, but I thought you one
of the stout ones. This fourth fellow, say you? Marry, by the build of
him he might be a brother of yours, for his feet dangled a foot nearer
the ground than the others; and when it came to--"

"Was he dark or fair?" I asked hurriedly, frightened lest he should
turn again to his horrible relation.

"Why, he had a shock of hair as like straw for colour as anything I saw.
I tell you no man knew his name. Some said he was a Highlander. And
he looked it, though I never saw one. But a wilder, more bold-face,
shameless villain I ne'er set eyes on. Ay, and he kept it up to the
end, too; after the hanging and when they--"

"Have done!" cried I, angrily, "no more of that. But tell me one last
thing. Said he anything, before he died?"

"Never a word. But there was a curl on his lip as if it were we who had
the rope round our necks and not he; and when the chaplain came to
exhort him, he swung round on his heel and pulls me out his papist
crucifix and kisses it before all the people. What think you of that
for a stubborn dog? The others died with their tails betwixt their
legs, I tell you; but this notable ruffler, from the moment he swung
aloft to the moment--"

I could stand him no more, and left him telling his horrible story to
the church steeple; while I crawled back, scarce daring to think, to my
master's house, I told this news neither to Jeannette nor the maiden.
For it might be false, as former panics had been. And if it were not
false, what good could it do to break that gentle heart a day sooner
than Heaven ordained?

So the year ended miserably, in doubt and gloomy foreboding; and
Jeannette and I, as we looked at the maiden's white cheek and suffering
brow, dare scarcely claim as our own the happiness which came of the
love that grew daily be