"Not so very plain, for your age, you know!" Nelly could not resist saying, though dreadfully frightened. But he continued without noticing the interruption-- "A plain man, and may-be I han't learned any of the monkey tricks your town-bred gentlemen bring here into the West, thinking to carry all before them, with a hoist of the eyebrows, a fool's grin, and a dancing-master's bow. But at least I'm honest, if I'm nothing more, not afraid to show my face by light of day, nor to speak my mind in any company, from my Lord Bellinger down to Dick Boss the sheriff's officer, who has got a job in hand that will take him all his time, judging by what I saw to-day." "Dick Boss! Sheriff's officer!" repeated Nelly, pale and aghast, for already she knew too well John Garnet's danger. "What have I to do with these matters? Why do you say such things to me?" Though the Parson's voice softened while he answered, in Nelly's ear it sounded harsher than before. "Why, Mistress Nelly?" he repeated. "I marvel that you can ask me so simple a question. Why do I watch every look of your blue eyes, every word from your sweet lips? Why do I feel a different man in your presence, and hover about you like that moor-buzzard up there hovers over the bare brow of the mountain, wheeling, poising, watching, waiting patiently till he may stoop and carry off his prize?" "Waiting to tear it in pieces, you mean!" replied Nelly, angrily. "You're talking nonsense, Master Gale. If buzzard you be, I at least am not going to become your prey." The sun was sinking to the brown level of the moor at their backs. The long shadows thrown before them, as they rode softly side by side, might have belonged to a pair of plighted lovers, so woven together were they, and intermingled on the broad expanse of heather, deepening to a browner russet and a redder gold with every moment of departing day. Yet in one bosom rankled wild, unsatisfied longings, jealousy, suspicion, rage of wounded pride; in the other, contempt, loathing, and a passionate hatred, the more embittered that it was dashed with fear. "You carry it with a high hand, Mistress Carew," said the Parson, losing the command he had tried to keep over a temper only too apt to rise beyond control. "You might have learned before now 'tis a waste of time to ride the great horse with me. I have the power, aye! and more than half the mind, to bring you down from your saddle there, in that tuft of heather, on your knees. You may smile--you look parlous handsome when you smile--but I'm not one to speak out of my turn, I tell ye. I know _everything_, and I've got his life in my hand!"