"A cursed place and a cursed time," he began, "for an appointment. If you had wanted to murder me, I could have understood it. But I am pretty safe, I think; your interests don't lie that way." "Well, well, you see," returned Lee, "I don't want any meetings on the cross up at my place in the village. The whole house ain't mine, and we don't know who may be listening. I am suspected enough already, and it wouldn't look well for you to be seen at my place. Folks would have begun axing what for." "Don't see it," said George. "Besides, if you did not want to see me at home, why the devil do you bring me out here in the middle of the moor? We might have met on the hill underneath the village, and when we had done business gone up to the publichouse. D----d if I understand it." He acquiesced sulkily to the arrangement, however, because he saw it was no use talking about it, but he was far from comfortable. He would have been still less so had he known that Lee's shout had brought up a confederate, who was now peering over the rocks, almost touching his shoulder. "Well," said Lee, "here we are, so we had better be as comfortable as we can this devil's night." "Got anything to drink?" "Deuce a swipe of grog have I. But I have got some real Barret's twist, that never paid duty as I know'd on, so just smoke a pipe before we begin talking, and show you aint vexed." "I'd sooner have had a drop of grog, such a night as this." "We must do as the Spaniards do, when they can't get anything," said Lee; "go without." They both lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for a few minutes, till Lee resumed:-- "If the witches weren't all dead, there would be some of them abroad to-night; hear that?" "Only a whimbrel, isn't it?" said George. "That's something worse than a whimbrel, I'm thinking," said the other. "There's some folks don't believe in witches and the like," he continued; "but a man that's seen a naked old hag of a gin ride away on a myall-bough, knows better." "Lord!" said George. "I shouldn't have thought you'd have believed in the like of that--but I do--that old devil's dam, dame Parker, that lives alone up in Hatherleigh Wood, got gibbering some infernal nonsense at me the other day, for shooting her black cat. I made the cross in the road though, so I suppose it won't come to anything." "Perhaps not," said Lee; "but I'd sooner kill a man than a black cat." Another pause. The tobacco, so much stronger than any George had been accustomed to, combined with the cold, made him feel nervous and miserable.