"That's very wisely said. Everybody covets a little something for which, perhaps, nobody else would give a straw. But what's the very little thing for which you are sighing?" "Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell that shop of hers. She is getting old, and has had fits; and she can get nobody to buy; and if Will had that shop and I could keep it,--but 'tis no use thinking of that." "What shop do you mean?" "There!" "Where? I see no shop." "But it is /the/ shop of the village,--the only one,--where the post-office is." "Ah! I see something at the windows like a red cloak. What do they sell?" "Everything,--tea and sugar and candles and shawls and gowns and cloaks and mouse-traps and letter-paper; and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor Will's baskets, and sells them for a good deal more than she pays." "It seems a nice cottage, with a field and orchard at the back." "Yes. Mrs. Bawtrey pays L8 a year for it; but the shop can well afford it." Kenelm made no reply. They both walked on in silence, and had now reached the centre of the village street when Jessie, looking up, uttered an abrupt exclamation, gave an affrighted start, and then came to a dead stop. Kenelm's eye followed the direction of hers, and saw, a few yards distant, at the other side of the way, a small red brick house, with thatched sheds adjoining it, the whole standing in a wide yard, over the gate of which leaned a man smoking a small cutty-pipe. "It is Tom Bowles," whispered Jessie, and instinctively she twined her arm into Kenelm's; then, as if on second thoughts, withdrew it, and said, still in a whisper, "Go back now, sir; do." "Not I. It is Tom Bowles whom I want to know. Hush!" For here Tom Bowles had thrown down his pipe and was coming slowly across the road towards them. Kenelm eyed him with attention. A singularly powerful man, not so tall as Kenelm by some inches, but still above the middle height, herculean shoulders and chest, the lower limbs not in equal proportion,--a sort of slouching, shambling gait. As he advanced the moonlight fell on his face; it was a handsome one. He wore no hat, and his hair, of a light brown, curled close. His face was fresh-coloured, with aquiline features; his age apparently about six or seven and twenty. Coming nearer and nearer, whatever favourable impression the first glance at his physiognomy might have made on Kenelm was dispelled, for the expression of his face changed and became fierce and lowering. Kenelm was still walking on, Jessie by his side, when Bowles rudely thrust himself between them, and seizing the girl's arm with one hand, he turned his face full on Kenelm, with a menacing wave of the other hand, and said in a deep burly voice, "Who be you?" "Let go that young woman before I tell you."