"The pig, the pig, your honour. To the Beam her went—straight as any Christian; an' me after her. Then, far beyond, in they gashly bogs where the Jacky-twoads dance on moony summer nights, I seed the horridest sight ever these eyes rested on. I knowed there was a dead thing there very soon, an' thought 'twas a pony. But when I comed nearer—there—let me have another drink—my inward organs turn to vinegar when I think upon it."
"Speak on," said Malherb. He stood before Mr. Woodman with his eyes fixed upon him.
"First I seed a great patch of rotted turf; for a dead body decays the grass under it, your honour; then I seed a litter of bones lying on the stones around about, where the crows an' buzzards had carried 'em for cleaner picking; an' then—lor-amercy! a human face-bone staring at me with hollow eyes an' grinning like Death! I plucked up courage, however, an' got off my hoss an' went up to the rames of the poor soul. An' next thing I knowed was that I'd found out the secret of that old mullygrubs, Lovey Lee! To hell the old vixen went; not to France as was thoughted, for there was an awful crack in her skull upon the brow. All rags an' bones she was; an' I seed her old petticoat made of stolen sacks, an' her sun-bonnet, catched in a thorn bush an' black wi' blood yet; an' the long white hair of her shed round about in locks hither an' thither, like the cotton grass that waves on the bogs. Let me drink, for the picture of that unholy masterpiece do cleave to my brain like moss to a rock."
A great hum of excitement followed upon this news. Then Malherb spoke.
"Let us eat our dinner with what appetite we may," he said, in a dull and hollow voice. "Forget what we have heard until to-morrow. Then we will go with a sledge and a pair of oxen and gather up her dust and coffin it."
"Don't let the old varmint lie beside that American gentleman, your honour's goodness," said Dinah Beer; "for 'twould be an unseemly thing that such evil earth should rise, come Judgment, so near his clay."
Malherb stared round the table and spoke again in the heavy accents of one who talks in sleep.
"She shall lie at Widecombe in holy ground; and when we bury her I will tell you something concerning her."
They supposed that he spoke of Lovey Lee's rumoured treasures. Then the meal began, but no joy accompanied it. The men whispered, and Woodman repeated his story again and again, adding some particulars with each recital.
The banquet had turned into a funeral feast, whereat nobody loved the dead. This tragedy, indeed, added a zest to their food; they could not leave the subject, but returned to it between every mouthful. Then, like thunder upon their whisperings and excited speculations, burst the master's voice.