"Yes, and have some old gossiping fool break in. No, no—here we are safe. But come nearer, and stand, as I do, in the shadow of the cliff."
"Not a foot nearer, Master Calverley, for all the gold in England. Why, you are standing just where the poor lady and her babe were buried!"
"Suppose I am—think you they will sleep the worse because I stand on their grave? Oh! it is a fine thing," he continued, as if following up some reflection in his mind, "to bury those we hate—deep, deep—so that they may never blast our sight again!—Byles, you perjured yourself in that affair of the buck. You swore to aid me. You had gold for the service, and yet it would have been better that the beast were still alive, than to have left it behind in the chase: it has only brought suspicion on me, and given Holgrave a fresh triumph!"
"No fault of mine, squire," answered Byles, in a sullen tone; "there was no such thing as getting the creature out; and if Sam or I had been caught, it would have been worse still. But bad as Stephen is, he wouldn't have thought of accusing us, if it hadn't have been for that old she-fox, his mother."
"Aye," said Calverley, with a smile—if the curve of a bloodless lip could be so designated—"aye, you name her rightly, Byles: she is a fox, and like a fox shall she die,—hunted—driven—tortured. Byles, have you never heard it said that this woman was a witch?"
"Why—yes—I have, Master Calverley; but in truth I don't like to have any thing to do with her. If she set a spell upon me, I could never do good again. Did not she tell Roger Follett, that if he didn't take care, sooner or later, the gable end of his house would fall? and so, sure enough it did."
"And yet, knowing this woman a witch, you would not assist in ridding the parish of such a pest?"
Byles made no reply.
"Well," resumed Calverley, taking some nobles from a small bag he had in his hand, "these must be for him who will aid me. You have been well paid, John Byles, for the work you did not do, and now,—see if your industry and your profitable farm will befriend you as much as I should have done."
This speech acted as Calverley had anticipated. The yeoman's scruples fled; and alarmed at the prospect of losing those comforts he had enjoyed since entering into the nefarious league, he said more earnestly than he had yet spoken—