“And so he is; he’s like yourself, he’s only half-baked, the half thick.”

“Now—­now—­now, Liza!” cried Robbie, raising himself on his haunches the better to give effect to his purpose of playing the part of peacemaker and restraining the ardor of his outspoken little friend.

“Come your ways out, I say,” said Liza, not waiting for the admonition that was hanging large on the lips of the blear-eyed philosopher on the floor.

“Come your ways,” she repeated; “I would be solid and solemn with you.”

Robbie was at this instant struggling to regain possession of the itinerant Dash, who, perceiving a means of escape, was hobbling his way to the door.

“Wait a minute,” said Robbie, having captured the runaway,—­“wait a minute, Liza, and Dash will show you how to dance like Mother Garth.”

“Shaf on Dash!” said Liza, taking a step or two into the room and securing to that animal his emancipation by giving him a smack that knocked him out of Robbie’s hands.  “Do you think I’ve come here to see your tipsy games?”

Robbie responded to this inquiry by asking with provoking good nature if she had not rather come to give him a token of her love.

“Give us a kiss, lass,” he said, getting up to his feet and extending his arms to help himself.

Liza gave him something instead, but it produced a somewhat louder and smarter percussion.

“What a whang over the lug she brong him!” said Reuben, turning to the schoolmaster.

“I reckon it’s mair wind ner wool, like clippin’ a swine,” said Matthew Branthwaite, who entered the inn at this juncture.

Robbie’s good humor was as radiant as ever.  “A kiss for a blow,” he said, laughing and struggling with the little woman.  “It’s a Christian virtue, eh, father?”

“Ye’ll not get many of them, at that rate,” answered Mattha, less than half pleased at an event which he could not comprehend.  “It’s slow wark suppin’ buttermilk with a pitchfork.”

“Will you never be solid with me?” cried Liza, with extreme vexation pictured on every feature as her scapegrace sweetheart tried to imprison her hands in order to kiss her.  “I tell you—­” and then there was some momentary whispering between them, which seemed to have the effect of sobering Robbie in an instant.  His exuberant vivacity gave place to a look of the utmost solemnity, not unmixed with a painful expression as of one who was struggling hard to gather together his scattered wits.

“They’ll only have another to take once they catch him,” said Robbie in an altered tone, as he drew his hand hard across his eyes.

There was some further whispering, and then the two went outside.  Returning to the door, Liza hailed her father, who joined them on the causeway in front of the inn.

Robbie was another man.  Of his reckless abandonment of spirit no trace was left.

Mattha was told of the visit of the constables to Shoulthwaite, and of Sim’s despatch in search of Ralph.