“Weary, weary,—­ay, as a tom-fool at a holiday feast,” said the hunchback to his companion.  “Spade and axe have I lifted these twenty years, and what the better am I o’ the labour?  A groat’s worth of wit is worth a pound o’ sweat,’ as my dame says.  I’ll turn pedlar some o’ these days, and lie, and cheat, and sell.”

“Ay, Gregory,” interrupted the other, “thee’d sell thy own paws, if so be they’d fetch a groat i’ the market; but then, I warrant, the dame at the hall would lack her henchman at the churn.”

“Tut!  I care for nought living but my worthless carcase,” replied the hunchback, surveying his own person.  “Why should I? there’s nought living that cares for me.  Sure as fate, if a’ waur dead beside, we’d ha’ curran’ baws i’ the pot every day.  What a murrain is it to this hungry maw whether Ned Talbot, or Joe Tempest, or any other knave o’ the pack, tumbles into his berth, or is put to bed wi’ the shovel, a day sooner or later.  He maun budge some time.  Faugh! how I hate your whining—­your cat-a-whisker’d faces, purring and mewling, while parson Pudsay says grace over the cold carrion; he cares not if it waur hash’d and stew’d i’ purgatory, so that he gets the shrift-money.  Out upon’t, Ralph, out upon it! this mattock should delve a’ the graves i’ the parish, if I could get a tester more i’ my fist.”

“Thou murdering tyke! wouldst dig my grave?”

“Ay,” shouted Gregory with a grin, displaying a huge double crescent of white teeth, portals to a gulf, grim, hideous, and insatiable; “ay, for St Peter’s penny.”

“And leave me to knock at the gate, and never a doit to pay the porter?”

“Thou shouldst cry and howl till doomsday, though my pouch had the keeping of a whole congregation of angels.

“Keep out o’ my way, cub—­unlicked brute!” cried the infuriate Ralph; “keep back, I say, or I may send thee first on thine errand to St Peter.  Take that, knave, and”—­

But the malicious hunchback stepped aside, and the blow, aimed with a hearty curse at this provoking lump of deformity, fell with a murderous force upon a writhen stem, which bore witness to the willing disposition with which the stroke was dealt.  Gregory was laughing and mocking all the while at the impotent wrath of his companion.

“A groat’s worth for a penny, I’m not yet boun’ for St Peter’s blessing, though, old crump-face!” cried the learing impertinent, one thumb between his teeth, and the little finger thrust out in its most expressive form of derision and contempt.

“Hush—­softly, prithee,” said the offended party, his anger all at once under the influence of a more powerful feeling.  He stood still, in the attitude of listening, earnestly bending forward with great solicitude and attention.

He pointed to some object just visible through the arches of the wood, in the dim twilight.

“There is the grey man o’ the mine again, as I live, Gregory; we’d best turn back, for our companions are gone out of hearing.”  The terrified rustic was preparing for immediate flight, but Gregory caught him by the belt.