LITMIR.BIZ

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devoid of lips, set tight as a snapped man-trap. He had keen, restless, watchful eyes. His hair was sandy, thrust forward over his brow, and hanging low behind. On the opposite side of the hearth crouched a boy, a timid, delicately formed lad with a large head and full lustrous eyes.

      "Come from far?" asked one of the ragamuffins at the table.

      "Didn't yur hear me say from Lun'non town?" answered the sailor. "Lagged that there dratted baby the whole way. I'll have another glass of beer."

      "And what distance are you going?" asked the lanky man.

      "I shall put into the next port for the night, and tomorrow on to Portsmouth, and stow away the kid with my wife's sister. Lord! I wishes the morrer were well over."

      "We're bound for Portsmouth," said the man in tatters. "What say you? shall we keep company and relieve you of the kid? If you'll pay the shot here and at the other end, and at the other pubs – can't say but what we'll ease you."

      "It's a bargain," exclaimed the sailor. "By George! I've had enough of it from Lun'non here. As to money, look here," he put his hand into his trousers pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, gold, silver and copper together. "There is brass for all. Just home, paid off – and find my wife dead – and me saddled with the yowling kid. I'm off to sea again. Don't see no sport wider-erring here all bebothered with a baby."

      "We are very willing to accompany you," said the tattered man, and turning to the fellow with sallow face and lantern jaws, he said, "What's your opinion, Lonegon?"

      "I'm willing, Marshall; what say you, Michael Casey?"

      "Begorra – I'm the man to be a wet nuss."

      The sailor called for spirits wherewith to treat the men who had offered their assistance.

      "This is a mighty relief to me," said he. "I don't think I could ha' got on by myself."

      "You've no expayrience, sir," said Casey. "It's I'm the boy for the babbies. Ye must rig up a bottle and fill it with milk, and just a whisk of a drop of the craytur to prevent it curdling, and then stuff the mouth with a rag – and the darlin'll suck, and suck, and be still as the evenin' star as I sees yonder glimmering at the window."

      "You'll have to start pretty sharp if you want to get on a stage before dark," said the man by the fire.

      "It's a lone road," threw in the boy shyly.

      "What's the odds when we are four of us?" asked the man whose name was Lonegon.

      "And all of us pertecting the little cherub from ketching cold," threw in Casey.

      "We ain't afraid – not we," said the ragged man.

      "Not of bogies, at any rate."

      "Oh, you need not fear bogies," observed the man at the fire, dryly.

      "What is it, then?" asked Michael Casey. "Sure It's not highwaymen?"

      The man by the fire warmed his palms, laughed, and said: "It would take two to rob you, I guess, one to put the money into your pocket and the second to take it out."

      "You're right there," answered the Irishman, laughing. "It's my pockets be that worn to holes wi' the guineas that have been in them, that now they let 'em fall through."

      The man by the fire rubbed his palms together and made a remark in a low tone – addressed to the boy. Lonegon turned sharply round on his seat and cried threateningly, "What's that you're hinting agin us? Say it again, and say it aloud, and I'll knock your silly, imperdent head off."

      "I say it again," said the young man, turning his cunning head round, like a jackdaw. "I say that if I were going over Hind Head and by the Punch Bowl at night with as much money in my pocket as has that seaman there – I'd choose my companions better. You haven't heard what I said? I'd choose my companions better."

      CHAPTER II

      WANDERING SOULS

      The long, lean fellow, Lonegon, leaped to his feet, and struck at the man by the fire.

      The latter was prepared for him. He had snatched a brand from the hearth, and without losing the sarcastic laugh on his great mouth, presented it sharply in the way of the descending fist, so as to catch Lonegon's wrist.

      The sparks flew about at the clash, and the man who had received the blow uttered a howl of pain, for his wrist was torn by the firewood, and his hand burnt by the fire.

      With an imprecation and a vow to "do for" "eyes, liver, and lights" of the "clodhopper," he rushed at him blindly. With a mocking laugh, the man assailed thrust forth a leg, and Lonegon, stumbling across it, measured his length on the floor.

      The man called Marshall now interfered by snatching the pewter tankard from the sailor, and aiming it at the head of him who had overthrown his mate.

      At the same time the boy, terrified, began to scream. "Mother! mother! help! pray! they'll murder Bideabout."

      The hostess speedily appeared, set her arms akimbo, planted her feet resolutely on the floor, and said, in commanding tones —

      "Now then! No fighting on the premises. Stand up, you rascal. What have you done with the pewter? Ah, crushed out of all shape and use. That's what Molly Luff sed of her new bonnet when she sat down on it – Lawk, a biddy! Who'd ha' thought it?"

      Lonegon staggered to his feet, and burst into a torrent of recrimination against the man whom the boy had called Bideabout.

      "I don't care where the rights are, or where be the wrongs. An addled egg be nasty eating whether you tackle it one end or 'tother. All I sez is – I won't have it. But what I will have is – I'll be paid for that there tankard. Who threw it?"

      "It was he – yonder, in tatters," said the boy.

      "You won't get money out o' me," said Marshall; "my pockets – you may turn 'em out and see for yourself – are rich in nothing but holes, and there's in them just about as many of they as there are in the rose o' a watering can."

      "I shall be paid," asserted the hostess. "You three are mates, and there'll be money enough among you."

      "Look here, mistress," put in the sailor, "I'll stand the damage, only don't let us have a row. Bring me another can of ale, and tell me what it all comes to. Then we'll be on the move."

      "The other fellows may clear off, and the sooner the better," said the landlady. "But not you just now, and the baby has dropped off into the sweetest of sleeps. 'Twere a sin to wake her."

      "I'm going on to the Huts," said the seaman.

      "And we're going with him as a guard to the baby," said the Irish fellow.

      "A blackguard set," threw in Bideabout.

      "What about the color so long as it is effective?" asked Casey.

      By degrees the anger of Lonegon was allayed, and he seated himself growling at the table, and wiped the blood from his torn wrist on his sleeve, and drawing forth a dirty and tattered red kerchief, bound it round the bruised and wounded joint. The man, Bideabout, did not concern himself with the wrath or the anguish of the man. He rubbed his hands together, and clapped a palm on each knee, and looked into the fire with a smirk on his face, but with an eye on the alert lest his adversary should attempt to steal an advantage on him.

      Nor was he unjustified in being on his guard, judging by the malignant glances cast at him by Lonegon.

      "Whom may you be?" asked the tattered man.

      "I'm Jonas Kink," answered the young fellow at the fire.

      "He's Bideabout, the Broom-Squire," explained the landlady. Then with a glimmering of a notion that this variation in names might prove confusing, she added, "leastways that's what we calls him. We don't use the names writ in the Church register here. He's the Broom-Squire – and not the sort o' chap for you ragamuffins to have dealings with – let me tell you."

      "I don't kear what he be," said Lonegon, sullenly, "but dang it, I'd like a sup o' ale with your leave," and without further ceremony he took the new tankard from the sailor and quaffed off half its contents.

      The hostess looked from

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