“Oh, there was nobody there,” replied the girl, emphatically. “I watched and waited for ever so long before I made the hole—there wasn’t a sign of anybody. Your hut wasn’t up here then—I shouldn’t ha’ done it if it had a-been there, for I’d ha’ been afeard ye mid see me.”
“Yes,” agreed Timothy, “that’s true. I mid ha’ seen ye.”
“And nobody could tell where ’twas hid,” she pursued mournfully. “I scratched up the earth and made it look same as all the rest o’ the field. I shouldn’t ha’ found it myself if I hadn’t ha’ made a little sign to know it by.”
“Sich as a mark in the hedge?” suggested Timothy.
She stared at him.
“A little cross, as mid be, cut in a holly stem?” continued the shepherd.
“O-o-oh,” cried Ann-Car’line, “you horrid, unkind, teasin’ chap! I d’ ’low you was spyin’ on me all the time!”
For all answer Timothy dived to the depths of his pocket and produced by slow degrees, first the chain, and then the watch itself.
Ann-Car’line, uncertain whether to be more angry or relieved, burst into a series of disjointed exclamations, and finally ordered her lover to give her back that watch immediately.
“Nothin’ of the kind,” replied he, dropping it into his pocket again. “I’ll keep it for ye same as I’ve a-been doin’ all along. Says I to mysel’ when I see’d what you was arter—‘That there maid’ll be gettin’ into trouble,’ I says, ‘wi’out somebody interferes.’ And so I—”