"This chap here," he blurted out, with a back scrape of his right foot, "be up to no good, your honour."
Mr. Weston looked at the stranger, and waited for farther explanation.
"'A be a London chap come down along here wi' designs. 'A don't deny en. 'A be cravin' all sorts of questions about your honour. 'A wanted to know whether your honour was rich, where your honour's house be, and how much money your honour keeps in it. I conceived it my duty to come along and tell your honour."
"O most mendacious Hodge!" exclaimed the stranger, shaking his head in sad and smiling reproof.
"That be the way 'a's been talkin' all the time; and swearin' and cussin' as well, and callin' your honour a frog. When 'a'd drawed out o' me that your honour was a justice, 'a cussed and rotted your honour."
"Custos rotulorum," said the stranger.
"They be the words--cussin' and rottin', your honour!"
[CHAPTER IV.]
IT WAS JUST SUCH A DAY AS THIS; AND THE AIR WAS SWEET, AND LIFE WAS SWEET.
Mr. Weston smiled, and the stranger smiled also. These smiles were like question and answer, and appeared to be given and accepted as a satisfactory defence to the labourer's accusations. At the same time there stole into Mr. Weston's eyes the same curiously pondering look which had dwelt in them when he and the stranger were first conversing.