"No one knows 'cept me, and I only guesses. He was wi' I just avore I heard master galloping over the moor, and he mun ha' passed master lying in the road. 'Twas no good me speaking. They wouldn't ha' took my word, and he'd ha' killed I if I'd spoke. 'Tis through he I be here now."
Adversity had sharpened Thomasine's tongue. She could not remember when she had last made such a lengthy speech.
"Where be yew going?" asked Brightly.
"Nowheres," said the girl. "Where be yew?"
"Anywhere," said Brightly, which meant the same thing. "Shall us get on?" he added.
Thomasine accepted the invitation, rose from the stone, and they walked on, up the road and the steep tor, and came out at last beside the church with its tiny burying-place of granite and its weather-beaten gravestones. They sat down to rest upon the edge of the precipice, and Thomasine wanted to know why they had come there.
"I wun't never be here again. I used to come up here to whistle and sing, and now I be come to look out for the last time," said Brightly. "I reckon I'll try t'other side o' the moor. Mebbe volks bain't so cruel wicked there."
"I reckon 'em be," said Thomasine.
"Du ye reckon they'll know I be a criminal?"
"Sure 'nuff. Policeman will tell 'em."