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quoth he, “of whom mak'st thou this squalling and squealing? A stick laid to thy bum will doubtless go far to keep thy soul from burning.”

“Unhand me!” he squalled. “She ’ll kill me, an I tell.”

“An thou tellest not, thou slubbering noddy, I ’ll slice thee into collops of veal.” And still holding the unhappy child by the ear, the host, making a ferocious face, reached for a long and sharp knife.

“I ’ll tell—I ’ll tell—’T is the two men that slept in the hay.”

“Ha! The hounds are in cry.”

And with that the host released his victim and dashed, knife in hand, out the kitchen door. The household trailed at his heels. The sleeping guests woke in their chambers and faces appeared at curtained windows.

Nell Entick fled from the stable as he came roaring, but seeing her not, he mounted the ladder and plunged into the hay with wild thrusts of his knife in all directions. “Hollo! Hollo!” he yelled. “At ’em, dogs, at ’em!” And the two sleepers in the far corner of the mow, as the household had done before them, started wide awake.

For the second time since they had met, Martin, crouching in the hay, crossed himself, then shot a scared glance at Phil. Martin was white round the lips and his hands were shaking like the palsy. “Said he aught of hanging?” he whispered. But Philip Marsham was then in no mood to heed his chance companion, whose bubble of bluster he had seen pricked three times.

What had occurred was plain enough and the two were cornered like rats; but Phil got up on his toes,