h cut-throat rascals as those who have gone off with the sailor;
and as for him--I take he's softish."

"I thought him a bit of a natural."

"He must be so to start on one of the lonesomest roads in England,
at fall of night, with such a parcel of jailbirds."

"Well, dear life!" exclaimed the good woman. "I hope nothing will
hap' to the poor child."

"Mother," said the boy, timidly, "it's not true is it about the
spirits of babies in the wind?"

"Of course it is. Where would you have them go? and they bain't
Christians. Hark! I won't say there be none flying about now. I
fancy I hear a sort of a kind o' whistling."

"Your boy Iver, he's coming with me to the Punch-Bowl," said the
Broom-Squire; "but I'll not go for half-an-hour, becos I don't
want to overtake that lanky, black-jawed chap as they call Lonegon.
He ain't got much love for me, and might try to repay that blow on
his wrist, and sprawl on the floor I gave him."

"What is Iver going to the Punch-Bowl for?" asked the landlady,
and looked at the boy, her son.

"It's a snipe's feather Bideabout has promised me," answered the
lad.

"And what do you want a snipe's feather for at this time o' night?"

"Mother, it's to make a paint brush of. Bideabout ain't at home
much by day. I've been over the road scores o' times."

"A paint brush! What do you want paint brushes for? Have you
cleaned out the pig-stye lately?"

"Yes, mother, but the pig lies abroad now; it's warm in the stye."

"Well, you may go. Dear life! I wish I could see that blessed babe
again, safe and sound. Oh, my!"

The good-hearted woman was destined to have her wish answered more
speedily than she could have anticipated.

CHAPTER III.

THE PUNCH-BOWL.

The Broom-Squire and the boy were on their way up the hill that
led towards the habitation of the former; or, to be more exact, it
led to the summit of the hill whence the Squire would have to
diverge at a sharp angle to the right to reach his home.

The evening had closed in. But that mattered not to them, for they
knew their way, and had not far to go.

The road mounted continuously, first at a slight incline, over
sand sprinkled with Scotch pines, and then more rapidly to the
range of hills that culminates in Hind Head, and breaks into the
singular cones entitled The Devil's Jumps.

This is one of the loveliest parts of fair England. The pine and
the oak and the Spanish chestnut luxuriate in the soil, the sand
tracts