"So far so good then," summed up Billy; "and I’m bound to say I think you’re right. I can put a hollow sound into my voice and bring it up from my boots, in a way that would make any girl go goose-flesh if she heard me after dark on a common week-day, not to name Christmas Eve at Crazywell. Leave that to me when the time cometh. Now the next thing is, what shall I say?" "Nought but the man’s name," advised Ernest Maunder; "the less you say the awfuller ’twill be." "Just ’Bart Stanbury! Bart Stanbury!’ twice," whispered Mattacott. "You’ll be snug hid in a fuzz bush, of course; and once you mark that she’s heard you, you can slip off home as quick as need be to prove ’twasn’t you, if anything comes to be said about it after." Billy nodded. "Just so; but I mustn’t say ’Bart’ Stanbury," he explained. "You see the man’s christening name is ’Bartholomew,’ and the spirit wouldn’t know as we called him ’Bart’ for shortness. The full name must be spoken, and that I shall do. So there ’twill be, and Jane West will believe that the man’s booked for death afore another year be out." Mr. Mattacott showed a little emotion on Stanbury’s account, but Billy overruled his qualms. The matter was allowed to drop and a diversion threw the two groups together and turned conversation into a former topic. Ellas Bowden came in, cold and rosy, out of the night. "Evening, souls!" he said. "On my way up-along and thought I’d give the pony five minutes and myself a drop out of the special bottle. What’s the best news?" "’Tis for you to tell us what’s the latest, master," said Bartley. "The latest," answered Mr. Bowden, "is this: that pious blade with his blacking brush and his Bible have been up over! Ess fay; Nap and Wellington runned in with the news after daylight. There’s no gates up my way except my own; but he’d fastened ’pon that, and there it was. I heard a dog bark last night, but ’twas dark as pitch and no good looking out the window." "And what might he have chosen for you?" asked Ernest Maunder. "The solemn words, ’_Jesus wept_,’" answered Elias. "A drop more water to this, Shillabeer, if you please. Yes, he’d writ those deep words there. Can’t say exactly why he put them in particular; but they drive the love of the Lord into the mind and make a man religious, no doubt. Not that I’m ever anything else, when you come to the bottom of me, I hope." "The thought that the Redeemer of mankind shed tears is a very sad thought, however," declared Mr. Moses. "And yet not all sad, if I make my meaning clear, because it brings Him nearer to us on the human side; and the nearer, the better." "Very well put, Charles," said Reuben Shillabeer. "The nearer the better, I’m sure." "Upon the rocks in the warrens too--so the boys tell me," continued the master of Ditsworthy. "The busy man have set up a good text or two here and there. I doubt he’ll take to writing ’em life-size upon the tors next."