meant.

JIM:
Who meant?

BELL:
How should I know?
You should ken best who's after you, and what
You're wanted for? They might be friends of yours,
For all I ken: though I've never taken, myself,
To the little boy-blues. But, carties, I'd have fancied
'Twould make your lugs burn--such a gillaber about you.
They talked.

JIM:
Who talked?

BELL:
Your friends.

JIM:
Friends? I've no friends.

BELL:
Well: they were none of mine. Last night I slept
'Neath Winter's Stob ...

JIM:
What's that to do with me?

BELL:
I slept till midnight, when a clank of chains
Awakened me: and, looking up, I saw
A body on the gibbet ...

JIM:
A body, woman?
No man's hung there this hundred-year.

BELL:
I saw
A tattered corpse against the hagging moon,
Above me black.

JIM:
You didn't see the face?

BELL:
I saw its face--before it disappeared,
And left the gibbet bare.

JIM:
You kenned the face?

BELL:
I kenned the face.

JIM:
Whose face? ...

BELL:
Best not to ask.

JIM:
O Christ!

BELL:
But we were talking of your friends:
Quite anxious about you, they seemed.

JIM (_limping towards BELL HAGGARD with lifted arm_):
You cadger-quean!
You've set them on. I'll crack you over the cruntle--
You rummel-dusty ... You muckhut ... You windyhash!
I'll slit your weazen for you: I'll break your jaw--
I'll stop your gob, if I've to do you in!
You'll not sleep under Winter's Stob to-night.

BELL (_regarding him, unmoved_):
As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?

JIM (_stopping short_):
Hanged?

BELL:
To be hanged by the neck till you are dead.
That bleaches you? But you'll look whiter yet,
When you lie cold and stiffening, my pretty bleater.

JIM (_shrinking back_):
You witch ... You witch! You've got the evil eye.
Don't look at me like that ... Come, let me go!

BELL:
A witch? Ay, wise men always carry witch-bane
When they've to do with women. Witch, say you?
Eh, lad, but you've been walking widdershins:
You'd best turn deazil, crook your thumbs, my callant,
And gather cowgrass, if you'd break the spell,
And send the old witch skiting on her bro