“I s’pose I shall.”

“For that you will return to Coombe?”

“In coorse I must.”

“At night—lest you should be seen?”

“Ay—to be sure.”

“You will lurk about—be in hiding. I’ll tell you what, I’m your good friend. I will do you no harm. I’ll just leave the door of my stores open—unhasped; and if you want to creep in, there’s a lot of wool and other things there, you can be warm there, Roger, warm in the wool.”

“Thanky’, sir. You’ll not peach?”

“And if—if you like a pipe—well”—

“No, Mr. Pepperill, I won’t do you that ill turn if you’re so good to me—and the little maid, Kitty, too.”

“Oh, I did not mean that. I can’t say but if a spark chanced to fall among the wool, and the whole was to blaze away, I should be sorry. I can’t say that I should be troubled, any more than was the landlord at Newton when the tramp set fire to his linhay over the pigs.”