Johnnie was now lying coiled up on his rug, his face hidden between his arms, abandoned to grief, sobbing aloud. Lampard, sitting athwart the seat so as to keep an eye on him, burst out at last: "Be a man, Johnnie, and stop your crying! 'Tis making things no better by taking on like that. What do you say, Daddy?" "I say nought," snapped the old man, and for a while they proceeded in silence except for those heartrending sobs. As they approached the old thorn tree, near the top of the long slope, Johnnie grew more and more agitated, his whole frame shaking with his sobbing. Again the constable rebuked him, telling him that 'twas a shame for a man to go on like that. Then with an effort he restrained his sobs, and lifting a red, swollen, tear-stained face he stammered out: "Master Lampard, did I ever ask 'ee a favour in my life?" "What be after now?" said the other suspiciously. "Well, no, Johnnie, not as I remember." "An' do 'ee think I'll ever come back home again, Master Lampard?" "Maybe no, maybe yes; 'tis not for me to say." "But 'ee knows 'tis a hanging matter?" "'Tis that for sure. But you be a young man with a wife and childer, and have never done no wrong before--not that I ever heard say. Maybe the judge'll recommend you to mercy. What do you say, Daddy?" The old man only made some inarticulate sounds in his beard, without turning his head. "But, Master Lampard, suppose I don't swing, they'll send I over the water and I'll never see the wife and children no more." "Maybe so; I'm thinking that's how 'twill be." "Then will 'ee do me a kindness? 'Tis the only one I ever asked 'ee, and there'll be no chance to ask 'ee another." "I can't say, Johnnie, not till I know what 'tis you want." "'Tis only this, Master Lampard. When we git to th' old thorn let me out o' the cart and let me stand under it one minnit and no more." "Be you wanting to hang yourself before the trial then?" said the constable, trying to make a joke of it. "I couldn't do that," said Johnnie, simply, "seeing my hands be fast and you'd be standing by." "No, no, Johnnie, 'tis nought but just foolishness. What do you say, Daddy?" The old man turned round with a look of sudden rage in his grey face which startled Lampard; but he said nothing, he only opened and shut his mouth two or three times without a sound. Meanwhile the pony had been going slower and slower for the last thirty or forty yards, and now when they were abreast of the tree stood still. "What be stopping for?" cried Lampard. "Get on--get on, or we'll never get to Salisbury this day." Then at length old Blaskett found a voice. "Does thee know what thee's saying, Master Lampard, or be thee a stranger in this parish?" "What d'ye mean, Daddy? I be no stranger; I've a-known this parish and known 'ee these nine years."