Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/168

162 At last, when there was a pause, he blurted out—

"There's spies about, mates; there's eyes been a-watching us while we was at our work in the barn to-night!" Instantly there was a confusion of tongues, so great that for a few moments he was allowed to get breath, while his companions pressed round him, with oaths and abrupt questionings. When he was able to go on, he said, "'Twas a lad from the village yonder as told me, young Will Bramley, that lives down by the mash'es, and works up at Parsonage."

"Well!"

"Well, Oi caught 'un as he were a getting off the roof of the little shippen, and he got away, runnin' as hard as he could towards the village yonder. But Oi come oop with him, and Oi says, says Oi, 'What be tha doing of?' says Oi. 'Tha've been spying,' says Oi. Then says he: ''Tain't Oi as have been spying, Bill Plunder,' says he. And he told as how 'twere Miss Joan Langney as had sent him for to see if there was spies about the barn, and as how he'd caught hold of a man's leg that was a looking through the slit in the big barn winder to-night."