s the bridegroom--the
happy man who had won her! How earnestly he had gazed into her
eyes, till she was compelled to lower them!

Was Iver going to settle at the Ship? Would he come over to the
Punch-Bowl to see her? Would he come often and talk over happy
childish days? There had been a little romance between them as
children: long forgotten: now reviving.

Her hand trembled as she raised it to her lips to wipe away the
dew that had formed there.

She had reached the highest point on the road, and below yawned
the great crater-like depression, at the bottom of which lay the
squatter settlement. A little higher, at the very summit of the
hill, stood the gibbet, and the wind made the chains clank as it
trifled with them. The bodies were gone, they had mouldered away,
and the bones had fallen and were laid in the earth or sand beneath,
but the gallows remained.

Clink! clink! clank! Clank! clink! clink!

There was rhythm and music, as of far-away bells, in the clashing
of these chains.

The gibbet was on Mehetabel's left hand; on the right was the abyss.

She looked down into the cauldron, turning with disgust from the
gallows, and yet was inspired with an almost equal repugnance at
the sight of the dark void below.

She was standing on the very spot where, eighteen years before,
she had been found by Iver. He had taken her up, and had given her
a name. Now she was taken up by another, and by him a new name
was conferred upon her.

"Come!" said Jonas; "it's all downhill, henceforth."

Were the words ominous?

He had arrived near her without her hearing him, so occupied had
her mind been. As he spoke she uttered a cry of alarm.

"Afraid?" he asked. "Of what?"

She did not answer. She was trembling. Perhaps her nerves had
been overwrought. The Punch-Bowl looked to her like the Bottomless
Pit.

"Did you think one of the dead men had got up from under the
gallows, and had come down to talk with you?"

She did not speak. She could not.

"It's all a pass'l o' nonsense," he said. "When the dead be turned
into dust they never come again except as pertaties or the like.
There was Tim Wingerlee growed won'erful fine strawberries; they
found out at last he took the soil in which he growed 'em from
the churchyard. I don't doubt a few shovelfuls from under them
gallows 'ud bring on early pertaties--famous. Now then, get up
into the cart."

"I'd rather walk, Jonas. The way down seems critical. It is dark
in th