"
All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but
the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, "I've often been
told that in this county they fire a gun at such times, but I never
heard it till now."
"I wonder if it is _my_ man?" murmured personage in cinder
gray.
"Surely it is!" said the shepherd, involuntarily. "And surely
we've seen him! That little man who looked in at the door by now,
and quivered like a leaf when he seed ye and heard your song."
"His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body," said
the dairyman.
"And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone," said Oliver
Giles.
"And he bolted as if he'd been shot at," said the hedge-carpenter.
"True--his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink, and he
bolted as if he'd been shot at," slowly summed up the man in the
chimney-corner.
"I didn't notice it," remarked the grim songster.
"We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,"
faltered one of the women against the wall, "and now't is explained."
The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly,
and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in
cinder gray roused himself.
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