You must have heard it surely, Stephen Whitelaw." "I heard nothing but what I tell you," the farmer muttered sulkily.

"Get downstairs, can't you ?" "Not till I know what's the matter," his wife said, undismayed by his anger.

"Give me your light, and let me go and see." "You can go where you like, wench, and see what you can; and an uncommon deal wiser you'll be for your trouble." And yet, although Mr.Whitelaw gave his wife the candlestick with an air of profound indifference, there was an uneasy look in his countenance which she could plainly see, and which perplexed her not a little.
"Come, Mrs.Tadman," she said decisively, "we had better see into this.
It was a woman's voice, and must have been one of the girls, I suppose.
It may be nothing serious, after all,--these country girls scream out for a very little,--but we'd better get to the bottom of it." Mr.Whitelaw burst into a laugh--and he was a man whose laughter was as unpleasant as it was rare.
"Ay, my wench, you'd best get to the bottom of it," he said, "since you're so uncommon clever.

Me and my friend will go back to the parlour, and take a glass of grog." The gentleman whom Mr.Whitelaw honoured with his friendship had stood a little way apart all this time, wiping his forehead with a big orange coloured silk handkerchief.

That blow upon his shin must have been rather a sharp one, if it had brought that cold sweat out upon his ashen face.
"Yes," he muttered; "come along, can't you?
don't stand cawing here all night;" and hurried downstairs before his host.
It had been all the business of a couple of minutes.