Dene Hollow Author:Henry Wood Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MARIA OWEN. It was a wild night. Clouds chased each other across the sky, darkening the face of the moon ; the wind dashed along in fitfu... more »l gusts with a rush and a whirl, dying away with a wailing sound. Stealing up Harebell Lane with steps that seemed fearful of their own echo, went two men carrying between them a bulky parcel, to all appearance remarkably heavy for its size. They had smock-frocks thrown over their ordinary attire, and hats slouched low on their faces. A casual passer-by would have taken them for labourers, tramping home wearily after a day's ploughing : a keener observer, if accustomed to live amongst rusties, might have seen how uneasily those smock-frocks were worn, and divined by instinct that they were assumed for a purpose. " Bear your own weight o' the load, Geach, and be hanged to ye," growled one, who was short and compact, to his taller companion. " And don't I bear it ? " carelessly retorted the other, whose accent was somewhat superior to his companions. The parcel was more like a bundle, its outside covering of canvas, and might have been supposed to contain garments, rather untidily rolled up together. In the stout cord that confined it were two loops at either end, by which the men carried it. " Change hands." They had gone a few paces further when Geach said this, and were close to the gates leading into Beechhurst Dene. Voices and steps, as if advancing from the Dene, at this moment became audible ; and the men, who were in the act of changing hands, started. A moment's pause : then Geach pushed his comrade into the ditch under the hedge, without the smallest compunction, and the bundle upon him. " Keep dark for your life, Eobson ! " he breathed. " Hide it, man ; hide it. Hang that moon ! " The offen...« less