teed Joe Scott’s legs wi’ band, suld be hung without benefit o’ clergy. It’s a hanging matter, or suld be; no doubt o’ that.”
“If I judged them, I’d give them short shrift!” cried Moore; “but I mean to let them quite alone this bout, to give them rope enough, certain that in the end they will hang themselves.”
“Let them alone, will ye, Moore? Do you promise that?”
“Promise? No. All I mean to say is, I shall give myself no particular trouble to catch them; but if one falls in my way”
“You’ll snap him up, of course: only you would rather they would do something worse than merely stop a waggon before you reckon with them. Well, we’ll say no more on the subject at present. Here we are at my door, gentlemen, and I hope you and the men will step in: you will none of you be the worse of a little refreshment.”
Moore and Helstone opposed this proposition as unnecessary; it was, however, pressed on them so courteously, and the night, besides, was so inclement, and the gleam from the muslin-curtained windows of the house before which they had halted, looked so inviting, that at length they yielded. Mr. Yorke, after having alighted from his gig, which he left in charge of a man who issued from an outbuilding on his arrival, led the way in.
It will have been remarked that Mr. Yorke varied a little in his phraseology; now he spoke broad
