brag
that he shall hab the maid yet, while her man's a-dancin' gallus-high a
top o' Tyburn tree."

The blood rushed up into Adam's face, so that each vein stood a separate
cord of swollen, bursting rage.

"They wasn't a-manin' you, ye knaw," said Jonathan: "'twar Jerrem. Her's
played un false, I reckon. Awh!" and he gave a fiendish chuckle, "but
us'll pay her out for't, woan't us, eh? Awnly you give to me the
ticklin' o' her ozel-pipe;" and he made a movement of his bony fingers
that conveyed such a hideous embodiment of his meaning that Adam,
overcome by horror, threw up his arms with a terrible cry to heaven,
and falling prone he let the bitterness of death pass over the love that
had so late lain warm at his heart; while Jonathan crouched down,
trembling and awestricken by the sight of emotion which, though he could
not comprehend nor account for, stirred in him the sympathetic
uneasiness of a dumb animal. Afraid to move or speak, he remained
watching Adam's bent figure until his shallow brain, incapable of any
sustained concentration of thought, wandered off to other interests,
from which he was recalled by a noise, and looking up he saw that Adam
had raised himself and was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Did he
feel so hot, then? No, it must be that he felt cold, for he shivered and
his teeth seemed to chatter as he told Jonathan to stoop down by the
side there and hand him up a jar and a glass that he would find; and
this got, Adam poured out some of its contents, and after tossing it off
told Jonathan to take the jar and help himself, for, as nothing could be
done until daylight, they might as well lie down and try and get some
sleep. Jonathan's relish for spirit once excited, he made himself
tolerably free of the permission, and before long had helped himself to
such purpose that, stretched in a heavy sleep, unless some one roused
him he was not likely to awake for some hours to come.

Then Adam got up and with cautious movements stole down the ladder,
undid the small hatch-door which opened out on the mill-stream, fastened
it after him, and leaping across stood for a few moments asking himself
what he had come out to do. He didn't know, for as yet, in the tumult of
jealousy and revenge, there was no outlet, no gap, by which he might
drain off any portion of that passionate fire which was rapidly
destroying and consuming all his softer feelings. The story which
Jonathan had brought of the betrayal to t