e lifted her on the mattress, backed by a portly bundle,
which the sagacity of Mr. Stokes had selected for his couch.

The waggoner cracked his whip, laughing at George Stokes, who yawned
and settled into a composed ploughswing, without asking questions;
apparently resolved to finish his nap on his legs.

'Warn't he like that Myzepper chap, I see at the circus, bound athert
gray mare!' chuckled the waggoner. 'So he 'd 'a gone on, had ye 'a let
'n. No wulves waddn't wake Gearge till he 'd slept it out. Then he 'd
say, "marnin'!" to 'm. Are ye 'wake now, Gearge?'

The admirable sleeper preferred to be a quiet butt, and the waggoner
leisurely exhausted the fun that was to be had out of him; returning to
it with a persistency that evinced more concentration than variety in
his mind. At last Evan said: 'Your pace is rather slow. They'll be
shut up in Fallowfield. I 'll go on ahead. You'll find me at one of the
inns-the Green Dragon.'

In return for this speech, the waggoner favoured him with a stare,
followed by the exclamation:

'Oh, no! dang that!'

'Why, what's the matter?' quoth Evan.

'You en't goin' to be off, for to leave me and Gearge in the lurch
there, with that ther' young woman, in that ther' pickle!' returned the
waggoner.

Evan made an appeal to his reason, but finding that impregnable, he
pulled out his scanty purse to guarantee his sincerity with an offer of
pledgemoney. The waggoner waved it aside. He wanted no money, he said.

'Look heer,' he went on; 'if you're for a start, I tells ye plain, I
chucks that ther' young woman int' the road.'

Evan bade him not to be a brute.

'Nark and crop!' the waggoner doggedly ejaculated.

Very much surprised that a fellow who appeared sound at heart, should
threaten to behave so basely, Evan asked an explanation: upon which the
waggoner demanded to know what he had eyes for: and as this query failed
to enlighten the youth, he let him understand that he was a man of
family experience, and that it was easy to tell at a glance that the
complaint the young woman laboured under was one common to the daughters
of Eve. He added that, should an emergency arise, he, though a family
man, would be useless: that he always vacated the premises while those
incidental scenes were being enacted at home; and that for him and
George Stokes to be left alone with the young woman, why they would be
of no more service to her than a couple of babies newborn themselves.
He, for h