At the worst it is but one to one; but the churl is strongly built." Although the traveller thus endeavoured to cheer his courage, his heart beat more loudly than its wont.

He kept his eyes stationed on the door by which the cottagers had vanished, and his hand on the massive poker.
While the stranger was thus employed below, Alice, instead of turning to her own narrow cell, went into her father's room.
The cottager was seated at the foot of his bed muttering to himself, and with eyes fixed on the ground.
The girl stood before him, gazing on his face, and with her arms lightly crossed above her bosom.
"It must be worth twenty guineas," said the host, abruptly to himself.
"What is it to you, father, what the gentleman's watch is worth ?" The man started.
"You mean," continued Alice, quietly, "you mean to do some injury to that young man; but you shall not." The cottager's face grew black as night.

"How," he began in a loud voice, but suddenly dropped the tone into a deep growl--"how dare you talk to me so ?--go to bed--go to bed." "No, father." "No ?" "I will not stir from this room until daybreak." "We will soon see that," said the man, with an oath.
"Touch me, and I will alarm the gentleman, and tell him that--" "What ?" The girl approached her father, placed her lips to his ear, and whispered, "That you intend to murder him." The cottager's frame trembled from head to foot; he shut his eyes, and gasped painfully for breath.

"Alice," said he, gently, after a pause--"Alice, we are often nearly starving." "_I_ am--_you_ never!" "Wretch, yes, if I do drink too much one day, I pinch for it the next.
But go to bed, I say--I mean no harm to the young man.

Think you I would twist myself a rope ?--no, no; go along, go along." Alice's face, which had before been earnest and almost intelligent, now relapsed into its wonted vacant stare.
"To be sure, father, they would hang you if you cut his throat.