"Iss, iss, sure. Wa-al, all right, I s'pose, but I ha'n't a bin let outside much: Joan won't have it, ye knaw. Poor Joan!" he sighed, "her's terrible moody-hearted 'bout 't all; and so's Eve too. I never see'd maids take on as they'm doin'; but there! I reckon 'twill soon be put a end to now." "How so?" said Adam. "Wa-al, you mustn't knaw, down below, more than you'm tawld," said the old man with a significant wink and a jerk of his head, "but Jerrem he let me into it this ebenin' when he rinned up to see me for a bit. Seems one o' they sodger-chaps is carr'in' on with Eve, and Jerrem's settin' her on to rig un up so that her'll get un not to see what 'tain't maned for un to look at." "Well?" said Adam. "Iss," said Zebedee, "but will it be well? That's what I keeps axin' of un. He's cock sure, sartain, that they can manage it all. He's sick, he says, o' all this skulkin', and he's blamed if he'll go on standin' it, neither." "Oh!" hissed Adam, "he's sick of it, is he?" and in the effort he made to subdue his voice the veins in his face rose up to be purple cords. "He'd nothing to do with bringing it on us all? it's no fault of his that the place is turned into a hell and we hunted down like a pack o' dogs?" "Awh, well, I dawn't knaw nuffin 'bout that," said old Zebedee, huffily. "How so be if 'tis so, when he's got clane off 'twill be all right agen." "All right?" thundered Adam--"how all right? Right that he should get off and we be left here?--that he shouldn't swing, but we must stay to suffer?" "Awh, come, come, come!" said the old man with the testy impatience of one ready to argue, but incapable of reasoning. "'Tain't no talk o' swingin', now: that was a bit o' brag on the boy's part: he's so eager to save his neck as you or me either. Awnly Jonathan's bin here and tawld up summat that makes un want to be off to wance, for he says, what us all knaws, without he's minded to it you can't slip a knot round Jonathan's clapper; and 'tain't that Jerrem's afeared o' his tongue, awnly for the keepin' up o' pace and quietness he fancies 'twould be better for un to make hisself scarce for a bit." Adam's whole body quivered as a spasm of rage ran through him; and Zebedee, noting the trembling movement of his hands, conveyed his impression of the cause by bestowing a glance, accompanied with a pantomimic bend of his elbow, in the direction of a certain stone bottle which stood in the corner. "Did Jonathan tell you what word 'twas he'd brought?" Adam managed to say. "Noa: I never cast eyes on un. He warn't here 'bove a foo minits 'fore he slipped away, none of 'em knaws where or how. He was warned not to go anighst you," he added after a moment's pause; "so I reckon you knaws no more of un than us does." "And Eve and Joan? were they let into the secret?" asked Adam; and the sound of his harsh voice grated even on Zebedee's dulled ears.