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"Strange!" I began

"Not a bit," said be; "when you've been a-walkin' an' a-walkin'

all day past 'edge and 'edge, and tree and tree, it's bad enough,

but it's worse when the sun's gone out, an' you foller the

glies, and

trees as ain't trees, but things as touch you as you pass, and

reach out arter you in the dark, behind Theer's one on 'em,

back theer on the Cranbrook road, looks like an oak-tree in the

dayti 'un--it's nearly 'ad , once by the arm, and once by the neck

I don't pass it arter dark no more, but it'll 'ave hts; and they'll find

ray o' the dawn!"

"Do you mean that you are afraid?" I inquired

"No, not afeared exactly; it's jest the loneliness--the lonely

quietness Why, Lord! you aren't got no notion o' the tricks the

trees and 'edges gets up to a' nights--nobody 'as but us as tramps

the roads Bill Nye knowed, same as I know, but Bill Nye's dead;

cut 'is throat, 'e did, wi' one o' 'is own razors--under a 'edge"

"And what for?" I inquired, as the Pedler paused to spit

lugubriously into the road again