She tied the coin hurriedly into the corner of her rags, as though she feared that I might try to wrest it from her. ‘It will buy bread,’ she croaked.
‘But who is there to sell it, good mistress?’ I asked.
‘They sell it at Fovant, and they sell it at Hindon,’ she answered. ‘I bide here o’ days, but I travel at night.’
‘I warrant she does, and on a broomstick,’ quoth Saxon; ‘but tell us, mother, who is it who hangs above your head?’
‘It is he who slew my youngest born,’ cried the old woman, casting a malignant look at the mummy above her, and shaking a clenched hand at it which was hardly more fleshy than its own. ‘It is he who slew my bonny boy. Out here upon the wide moor he met him, and he took his young life from him when no kind hand was near to stop the blow. On that ground there my lad’s blood was shed, and from that watering hath grown this goodly gallows-tree with its fine ripe fruit upon it. And here, come rain, come shine, shall I, his mother, sit while two bones hang together Cincinnati Bengals Barn of the man who slow my heart’s darling.’ She nestled down in her rags as she New Orleans Saints Tröjor spoke, New Orleans Saints Barn and leaning her chin upon her hands stared up with an intensity of hatred at the hideous remnant.
‘Come away, Reuben,’ I cried, for the sight was enough to make one loathe one’s kind. ‘She is a ghoul, not a woman.’
‘Pah! it gives one a foul taste in the mouth,’ quoth Saxon. ‘Who is for a fresh gallop over the Downs? Away with care and carrion!
“Sir John got on his bonny brown steed,
To Monmouth for to ride — a.
A brave buff coat upon his back,
A broadsword by his side — a.
Ha, ha, young man, we rebels can
Pull down King James’s pride — a!”
Hark away, lads, with a loose rein and a bloody heel!’
We spurred our steeds and galloped from the unholy spot as fast as our brave beasts could carry us. To all of us the air had a purer flavour and Arturo Vidal Drakt the heath a sweeter scent by contrast with the grim couple whom we had left behind us. What a sweet world would this be, my children, were it not for man and his cruel ways!
When we at last pulled up we had set some three or four miles between the gibbet and ourselves. Right over against us, on the side of a gentle slope, stood a bright little village, with a red-roofed church rising up from amidst a clump of trees. To our eyes, after the dull sward of the plain, it was a glad sight to see the green spread of the branches and the pleasant gardens which girt the hamlet round. All morning we had seen no sight of a human being, save the old hag upon the moor and a few peat-cutters in the distance. Our belts, too, were beginning to be Beats Solo loose upon us, and the remembrance of our breakfast more faint.
‘This,’ said I, ‘must be the village of Mere, which we were to pass before coming to Bruton. We shall soon be over the Somersetshire border.’
‘I trust that Halpa Naiset Cg Snow Parka we shall soon be over a dish of beefsteaks,’ groaned Reuben. ‘I am well-nigh famished. So fair a village must needs have a passable inn, Scarpe Nike Air Max Uomo though I have not |
