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“Nothing good,” said Martha. She threw a hasty glance round. “Be there any one about?”

She spoke in a peculiarly loud and distinct key, and he answered in the low, mumbling tone habitual to deaf people.

“Nay, who should be about? There bain’t nobody here but myself.”

“I think I’ll go with ’ee to the top o’ the hill and make sure—I don’t want nobody to hear what I’ve a-got to tell ’ee. Go on—go on to the top o’ the drill.”

“I be to go forrard?” questioned her husband, staring at her stupidly.

“’Ees, take them harses up to the top o’ the drill, and then I’ll talk to ’ee.”

Frizzell admonished his horses to proceed, and went plodding on up the rising ground along which he had traced his furrow, glancing round every now and then at the set face of his wife as she plodded in his rear.

He was a big, blond, good-natured man, whose natural dulness of wit was intensified by his infirmity.

When they reached the brow of the hill Martha slipped in front of him, and standing on tip-toe, cast a searching glance round. A flock of sheep was penned in a corner of the adjacent turnip-field, a few rooks were waddling up the furrows nearer at hand; over their heads a heron was slowly sailing with wide, sweeping wings on his way to the river, but not a human creature was in sight.