ions. His companion, younger and more vivacious,
was distinguished by a goodly and well-thriven hump, and by that fulness
and projection of the chest which usually characterise this species of
deformity. His long arms nearly trailed to the ground as he walked; huge
and sprawling, they seemed to have been originally intended as an
attachment to a frame of much more gigantic proportions. His face had
that peculiar form and expression which always, more or less, accompany
this kind of malformation. Wide, large, angular; the chin sharp and
projecting, supported on the breast; the whole head scarcely rivalling
the shoulders in height and obliquity. His disposition was evidently
wayward and irascible, and a keen satirical humour lurked in every line
of his pallid visage; generally at war with his species, and ready to
act on the defensive; snarling whenever he was approached, and always
anticipating gibe and insult from his fellows.

"Weary, weary,--ay, as a tom-fool at a holiday feast," said the
hunchback to his companion. "Spade and axe have I lifted these twenty
years, and what the better am I o' the labour? A groat's worth of wit is
worth a pound o' sweat,' as my dame says. I'll turn pedlar some o' these
days, and lie, and cheat, and sell."

"Ay, Gregory," interrupted the other, "thee'd sell thy own paws, if so
be they'd fetch a groat i' the market; but then, I warrant, the dame at
the hall would lack her henchman at the churn."

"Tut! I care for nought living but my worthless carcase," replied the
hunchback, surveying his own person. "Why should I? there's nought
living that cares for me. Sure as fate, if a' waur dead beside, we'd ha'
curran' baws i' the pot every day. What a murrain is it to this hungry
maw whether Ned Talbot, or Joe Tempest, or any other knave o' the pack,
tumbles into his berth, or is put to bed wi' the shovel, a day sooner or
later. He maun budge some time. Faugh! how I hate your whining--your
cat-a-whisker'd faces, purring and mewling, while parson Pudsay says
grace over the cold carrion; he cares not if it waur hash'd and stew'd
i' purgatory, so that he gets the shrift-money. Out upon't, Ralph, out
upon it! this mattock should delve a' the graves i' the parish, if I
could get a tester more i' my fist."

"Thou murdering tyke! wouldst dig my grave?"

"Ay," shouted Gregory with a grin, displaying a huge double crescent of
white teeth, portals to a gulf, grim, hideous, and insatiable; "ay, for
St