“Nay, ye’re limber enow; ’tis owd bones like me it finds out,” quoth Jerry, grinning. “’Tis th’ season o’ life wi’ ye to think more o’ th’ women nor th’ drink they bring. I ken your ways; but me, I’m naughbut rare and thirsty.” “Well, maybe I’se mend o’ that.” “Ay, Jessie ’ll mend ye, if ye’re mendable. Ye may laugh; ginger’s for game, and al’ays was----” “They ken best where th’ shoe pinches that has it on, Jerry.” “Ay, when they get it on; thou’rt not shod yet, lad.--Well, wisdom’s wasted o’ youth; let’s to th’ ribs an’ knees again---- Spell----” They turned to with the axes again. Somewhere up the wood a man was setting a hone to a bill-hook, and away to the right they had begun to chop at another tree. Willie and Jerry were well ahead, and nowhere were they sawing yet; and as the chips started and flew, and the keen axes cut deeper and deeper into the bole, and Jerry’s mouth and eyebrow flickered and dipped, they began to pass round the tree and to cut more carefully here and there. A whiff of strong tobacco came down the glade, and the placid bailiff stood and watched them. “Ye’ll be almost ready for th’ ropes and cross-cut,” he remarked, “and then there’ll be _one_ on ’em down.--Eh, they must ha’ seen some scenes, must these oaks! Ay, they must.--Are ye acquainted wi’ these parts? No, say ye? Eh, things has happened i’ this neighbourhood, hundreds o’ years back. It were off th’ Head, yonder, that Paul Jones fought, that ye ’ll ha’ heard tell of.--No! Well, that’s surprising!” He continued to talk in his mild, easy way, telling them his story of Paul Jones; and, by and by, Willie shouted out loud, “Skipjack!” A call up the wood answered him. “Skipjack” was Charlie Dodd. He came, an ungainly youth with a long neck, a back shaped like a lad’s kite by reason of his sloping shoulders, and enormous hands and wrists. “Nay, don’t hang yoursel’,” the bailiff observed as Charlie passed a loop of rope about his neck; and Jerry and Willie hoisted him up to a bough.