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ordinary gait a tin-pedlar’s broken-down jade can set a pace too fast for thee to follow.”

“Yea, laugh at me! Wouldst thou stay for sugared pills of pleasure with the hangman at thy heels?”

“What has a poor devil in stocks to do with the hangman, prithee? And why this fierce haste?”

"Th’ art no better than a gooseling — fit for tavern quarrels. And did you never see a man dance on air? ’T is a sight to catch the breath in the throat and make an emptiness in a man’s belly.”

"There be no hangings without reason.”

“Reason? Law, logic, and the Switzers can be hired to fight for any man, they say. ’T is true, in any event, of the law. I’ve seen the learned men in wigs wringing a poor man’s withers and shaping the halter to his neck.”

They had talked breathlessly at long intervals in their hasty flight, and thus talking they had come out of the town and up from the valley; nor would Martin stay to rest till from the southern hill that had given them their first prospect of Bristol city they looked back upon the houses and the river and the ships. Martin breathed more easily then and mopped his fore- head and sat down until his wildly beating heart was quieter.

“To Bideford we must go, after all,” said he, "and ’t were better by far had we never turned from the straight road.”

“I am of no mind to go farther,” Phil replied, looking back. ‘‘There will be more vessels sailing out of Bristol than out of Bideford. A man can choose in which to go.”

Martin gulped and rubbed his throat. ‘‘Nay, I’ll not