no name... Come, keep the fire up
there, youngsters."

"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy
from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. "Be ye
a-cold, Christian?"

A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."

"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.

Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step
or two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a
dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.

"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.

"I'm the man."

"What man?"

"The man no woman will marry."

"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
Christian's whole surface and a great deal more; Grandfer Cantle
meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.

"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it,
though I do care all the while."

"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd,"
said Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the
country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"

"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
like targets.

"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know
the women won't hae thee?"

"I've asked 'em."

"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what
did the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps,
after all?"

"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,' was the woman's words to me."

"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old
be you, Christian?"

"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."

"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."

"That's