"Go to that field called 'Thornyside,' what miller Taverner owns up above the gorge, presently after nightfall, if you want to know any more. I'll let you hear when the day is fixed. 'Tis only following out an ancient custom. You like the old ways and you like buryings, so the business will just suit you." "One of them mock funerals!" "Just so." "Then you're going to show up a bit of secret sin as you've found out--is that it?" "If it is?" Mrs. Weekes was much concerned. "For my son to meddle in such work as that!" she gasped. "'Tis fun, I tell you. Damn it all, be I to live my dreary days without never a joke or a laugh to make life better worth? If you knowed a half or a quarter of the dull dog's life I lead now and the hardships I've had of late, you'd be only too glad for me to amuse myself sometimes." "Don't think to fool me," she said. "You ban't the sort of man--no better than a savage monkey--who'd do a thing like this for fun. You've got your reasons. You be going to strike an enemy." "Leave it at that, then, since you're so clever." "Will he leave it at that? I should judge what you be wanting just now are friends, Jar, not enemies. You are going to hurt a man in a terrible tender place. And if you can't make good this charge--what then?" "I've thought of that. I'm not attacking any man; I'm punishing a man for attacking me. I want money. I go to a chap who is rolling in it. I beg for a trifling loan, and he refuses, for no reason but unkindness and want of charity. 'Tis he has made me his enemy. And now I'll show him up. He's either a blind fool, or else a knave--and the world shall know it one way or t'other." Mrs. Weekes partly read the remark. "He's a husband, then, and you be going to let folk know he's--what? wronged or wronging?" "Go to Jacob Taverner's field and find out," he answered. "I'll say no more at all upon the subject. 'Twill all be done very decently and in order, I promise you. There be those about who remember the same thing often in the past." "And so do I," said Hephzibah, "and also what comed of one of those May games. A man had another man's life for it after the funeral was over, and the murderer swung in Exeter gaol, though recommended to mercy. You mind what you're doing--else your childer may be orphans and your wife a widow afore hay harvest." Philip Weekes appeared at this moment, and Jarratt took himself off. He did not go home, but visited the field of Jacob Taverner already mentioned. It lay upon the southern side of Lyd, and Weekes crossed the river by the bridge over the gorge, then entered the croft, climbed its steep side, and knocked at the door of a cowshed which stood in one corner. It was locked from inside, and light and the sound of voices issued from the chinks of the wooden building. "Who be that?" cried somebody. "Me--Weekes," answered Jarratt.