"God forgive you, souls!" cried Smallridge; "an' mind, when you'm wading waist-deep in trouble, that it weren't no fault of mine. Bide till I be out of sight, that's all. Then you an' this here crooked old Apollyon can go to your wicked work." He looked at Kekewich, shook his head at the doomed monument, and hobbled away as fast as his legs would carry him. "Us had better all spit over our left shoulders for luck," said Mr. Beer; "then we can begin. An' see that all four of us hang upon the rope together, so as the work an' the pay be equally divided." Harvey Woodman's young son prepared to give assistance, but his father roughly bade him begone. "You drop that rope an' get up to the farm to your mother," he said. "She'll find you a job. Us don't want you to-day." CHAPTER X THE FIRSTBORN The destruction of Childe's Tomb awoke no protest upon the county-side, for antiquaries had not yet turned their attention to the interesting and obscure relics of former ages scattered over Dartmoor. A few intelligent men mourned that another mediæval landmark had been sacrificed to the advance of civilisation; then the matter was forgotten, save at Fox Tor Farm, where great unrest still reigned among the workers. The women exhibited chief concern; but while Annabel and Grace Malherb showed sentimental regret and the master laughed at them for their folly, Dinah Beer and Mary Woodman took a far more serious view of the incident, and reduced their husbands to the extremity of uneasiness. They foretold disaster upon all concerned; Mr. Kekewich they specially tormented, and declared that, as arch instigator of the outrage, upon him the first grief must fall. He cared nothing; but Richard, Harvey, and others went in growing fear. They longed for weeks and months to pass that they might be removed by time from the hour of their evil deed; then, as each uneventful day dwindled and each night passed by, they drew a little nearer toward peace of mind. After a month had passed they plucked up spirit and faced the unseen with steadier gaze. "Another week gone an' nothing said," whispered Putt one morning to Harvey Woodman, where they worked at wall-building. He glanced sideways up to heaven as he spoke with a gesture of suspicion. "No--the world goes on very easy. What did Peter Norcot give 'e for taking the pack-horse with his leather boxes back to Chaggyford?" "There again--good luck surely. A crown I got by it; an' I ate my meat with Mason's mother an' sister who live there. Mason be Mr. Norcot's man, and his sister is called Tryphena. An' I be going over again, for she said, when I axed her, that pinky rims to the eyes didn't stand against a chap in her judgment. She thought 'twas a beauty, if anything. Her be a few year older'n me; but that often works very well, an' keeps down the family."