“Poor lad, his diet is brimstone, now, and over hot for a delicate taste. He was killed in a brawl, somewhere about midsummer.”

“I sorrow to hear that; the Wen was a capable man, and brave.”

“That was he, truly.

Black Bess, his dell, is of us yet, but absent on the eastward tramp; a fine lass, of nice ways and orderly conduct, none ever seeing her drunk above four days in the seven.”

“She was ever strict — I remember it well — a goodly wench and worthy all commendation. Her mother was more free and less particular; a troublesome and ugly-tempered beldame, but furnished with a wit above the common.”

“We lost her through it. Her gift of palmistry and other sorts of fortune-telling begot for her at last a witch’s