r.

Then they lifted the unconscious man from the bed, opened the door, and
carried him into the passage.

Mercy recovered her stunned senses. When the men were gone she crept out
on tiptoe and tripped down the passage to her own room. At the door she
reeled and fell heavily. Then, in a vague state of consciousness, she
heard these words passed over her--"Carry her back into her room and
lock her in." At the same instant she felt herself being lifted in a
strong man's arms.

CHAPTER XVI.

Before Gubblum Oglethorpe parted with Jabez, he tried to undo the
mischief he had done. "Give us a shak' o' thy daddle," he said, holding
out his hand. But Jabez had not forgotten the similitude of the swine
ring. He made no response.

"Dang him for a fool!" thought Gubblum. "He's as daft as a besom." Then
Gubblum remembered with what lavish generosity he had bribed the pot-boy
to no purpose. "He cover't a shilling dammish," he thought; "I'll dang
his silly head off!"

Jabez put down the candle and backed out of the room, his eyes fixed on
the peddler with a ghostly stare.

"You needn't boggle at me. I'll none hurt ye," said Gubblum. Jabez
pulled the door after him. "His head's no'but a lump of puddin' and a
daub o' pancake," thought Gubblum.

Then the peddler sat on the bed and began to wonder what possible reason
there might be for the lad's sudden change of temper. He sat long, and
many crude notions trotted through his brain. At last he recalled the
fact that he had said something about Jabez's snout carrying a swine
ring. That was the rub, sure enough. "I mak' no doobt he thowt it was a
by-wipe," thought Gubblum.

Just as the peddler had arrived at this sapient conclusion, he heard
heavy footsteps ascending and descending the ladder that stood in the
passage outside. Gubblum understood the sounds to mean that the inn was
so full of visitors that some of them had to be lodged even in the
loft. "Ey, I shouldn't wonder but this is a bonny paying consarn," he
thought.

He undressed, got into bed, and blew out his light. He lay awhile
waiting for sleep, and thinking of the failure of his plummets to sound
the depths of Jabez. Then he remembered with vexation that the lad had
even laughed at him in spite of the "shilling dammish."

"Shaf, it was no'but his guts crowkin'," thought Gubblum; and he rolled
over, face to the wall, and began to pay nasal tribute to sleep.

From the slowly tightening grip of unconscious