Though the shadows were too deep for my eyes to serve me, yet I could follow the newcomer’s approach quite easily by the sound he made; indeed, I was particularly struck by the prodigious rustling of leaves.  Whoever it was must be big and bulky, I thought, and clad, probably, in a long, trailing garment.

All at once I knew I was observed, for the sounds ceased, and I heard nothing save the distant bark of a dog and the ripple of the brook near by.

I remained there for, maybe, a full minute, very still, only my fists clenched themselves as I sat listening and waiting—­and that minute was an hour.

“You won’t be wantin’ ever a broom, now?”

The relief was so sudden and intense that I had much ado to keep from laughing outright.

“You won’t be wantin’ ever a broom, now?” inquired the voice again.

“No,” I answered, “nor yet a fine leather belt with a steel buckle made in Brummagem as ever was.”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the Pedler, and forthwith Gabbing Dick stepped out of the shadows, brooms on shoulder and bulging pack upon his back, at sight of which the leafy tumult of his approach was immediately accounted for.  “So it’s you, is it?” he repeated, setting down his brooms and spitting lugubriously at the nearest patch of shadow.

“Yes,” I answered, “but what brings you here?”

“I be goin’ to sleep ’ere, my chap.”

“Oh!—­you don’t mind the ghost, then?”

“Oh, Lord, no!  Theer be only two things as I can’t abide—­trees as ain’t trees is one on em, an’ women’s t’ other.”

“Women?”

“Come, didn’t I ’once tell you I were married?”

“You did.”

“Very well then!  Trees as ain’t trees is bad enough, Lord knows!—­but women’s worse—­ah!” said the Pedler, shaking his head, “a sight worse!  Ye see, trees ain’t got tongues—­leastways not as I ever heerd tell on, an’ a tree never told a lie—­or ate a apple, did it?”

“What do you mean by ’ate an apple’?”

“I means as a tree can’t tell a lie, or eat a apple, but a woman can tell a lie—­which she does—­frequent, an’ as for apples—­”

“But—­” I began.

“Eve ate a apple, didn’t she?”

“The Scriptures say so,” I nodded.

“An’ told a lie arterwards, didn’t she?”

“So we are given to understand.”

“Very well then!” said the Pedler, “there y’ are!” and he turned to spit into the shadow again.  “Wot’s more,” he continued, “‘twere a woman as done me out o’ my birthright.”

“How so?”

“Why, ‘twere Eve as got us druv out o’ the Gardin o’ Eden, weren’t it?  If it ‘adn’t been for Eve I might ha’ been livin’ on milk an’ ‘oney, ah! an’ playin’ wi’ butterflies, ‘stead o’ bein’ married, an’ peddlin’ these ‘ere brooms.  Don’t talk to me o’ women, my chap; I can’t abide ’em bah! if theer’s any trouble afoot you may take your Bible oath as theer’s a woman about some’eres—­theer allus is!”