ow?"

"The Faithful tells fortunes; and sometimes we pick up windfalls--widows
and elderly single ladies--but it is dangerous. Labour is sweet, sir:
but not hard labour in the dungeons of a Bridewell. She has known that
labour, sir; and in those intervals I missed her much, Don't cry, Hag; I
repeat, I live!"

"I understand now; you live upon her! They are the best of creatures,
these hags, as you call them, certainly. Well, well, no saying what a
man may come to! I suppose you have never seen Waife, nor that fellow
you say was so well-dressed and good-looking, and who sold you the
Phenomenon, nor the Phenomenon herself--Eh?" added Losely, stretching
himself, and yawning, as he saw the brandybottle was finished.

"I have seen Waife--the one-eyed monster! Aha!--I have seen him!--and
yesterday too; and a great comfort it was to me too!"

"You saw Waife yesterday--where?"

"At Ouzelford, which I and the Faithful left this morning."

"And what was he doing?" said Losely, with well-simulated indifference.
"Begging, breaking stones, or what?"

"No," said Rugge, dejectedly; "I can't say it was what, in farcical
composition, I should call such nuts to me as that, sir. Still, he was
in a low way--seemed a pedlar or a hawker, selling out of a pannier on
the Rialto--I mean the Cornmarket, sir--not even a hag by his side, only
a great dog--French. A British dog would have scorned such fellowship.
And he did not look merry as he used to do when in my troop. Did he,
Hag?"

"His conscience smites him," said the Hag, solemnly.

"Did you speak to him?"

"Why, no. I should have liked it, but we could not at that moment,
seeing that we were not in our usual state of independence. This
faithful creature was being led before the magistrates, and I
too--charge of cheating a cook-maid, to whom the Hag had only said,
'that if the cards spoke true, she would ride in her carriage.' The
charge broke down; but we were placed for the night in the Cells of the
Inquisition, remanded, and this morning banished from the city, and are
now on our way to--any other city;--eh, Hag?"

"And the old man was not with the Phenomenon? What has become of her,
then?"

"Perhaps she may be with him at his house, if he has one; only, she was
not with him on the Rialto or Cornmarket. She was with him two years
ago, I know; and he and she were better off then than he is now, I
suspect. And that is why it did me good, sir, to see him a pedlar--a
common pe