The cottager's frame trembled from head to foot; he shut his eyes, and gasped painfully for breath. "Alice," said he, gently, after a pause--"Alice, we are often nearly starving." "/I/ am--/you/ never!" "Wretch, yes, if I do drink too much one day, I pinch for it the next. But go to bed, I say--I mean no harm to the young man. Think you I would twist myself a rope?--no, no; go along, go along." Alice's face, which had before been earnest and almost intelligent, now relapsed into its wonted vacant stare. "To be sure, father, they would hang you if you cut his throat. Don't forget that;--good night;" and so saying, she walked to her own opposite chamber. Left alone, the host pressed his hand tightly to his forehead, and remained motionless for nearly half an hour. "If that cursed girl would but sleep," he muttered at last, turning round, "it might be done at once. And there's the pond behind, as deep as a well; and I might say at daybreak that the boy had bolted. He seems quite a stranger here--nobody'll miss him. He must have plenty of blunt to give half a guinea to a guide across a common! I want money, and I won't work--if I can help it, at least." While he thus soliloquised the air seemed to oppress him; he opened the window, he leant out--the rain beat upon him. He closed the window with an oath; took off his shoes, stole to the threshold, and, by the candle, which he shaded with his hand, surveyed the opposite door. It was closed. He then bent anxiously forward and listened. "All's quiet," thought he, "perhaps he sleeps already. I will steal down. If Jack Walters would but come tonight, the job would be done charmingly." With that he crept gently down the stairs. In a corner, at the foot of the staircase, lay sundry matters, a few faggots, and a cleaver. He caught up the last. "Aha," he muttered; "and there's the sledge-hammer somewhere for Walters." Leaning himself against the door, he then applied his eye to a chink which admitted a dim view of the room within, lighted fitfully by the fire. CHAPTER II. "What have we here? A carrion death!" /Merchant of Venice/, Act ii. Sc. 7.