'Are you a relation of the dead man?' I asked.

She shook her head.

'You knew him?' I continued, 'and you pity his unchristian death?'

But she was again silent, and I had to renew my questioning: 'What was his name, and why was he put to death? What crime did he commit?'

'His name was Nathaniel Alfinger, and he killed a man for a woman,' said the maiden, distinctly and in the most unconcerned manner that it is possible to conceive, as if murder and hanging were the commonest and most uninteresting of all events. I was astounded, and gazed at her sharply, but her look was passive and calm, denoting nothing unusual. 'Did you know Nathaniel Alfinger?'

'No.'

'Yet you came here to protect his corpse from the fowls?'

'Yes.'

'Why do you do that service to one whom you did not know?'

'I always do so.'

'How—!'

'Always when any one is hanged here I come and frighten away the birds and make them find other food. See—there is another vulture!'

She uttered a wild, high scream, threw her arms above her head, and ran across the meadow so that I thought her mad. The big bird flew away, and the maiden came quietly back to me, and, pressing her sunburnt hands upon her breast, sighed deeply, as from fatigue. With as much mildness as I could put into my voice, I asked her:

'What is your name?'

'Benedicta.'

'And who are your parents?'

'My mother is dead.'

'But your father—where is he?'

She was silent. Then I pressed her to tell me where she lived, for I wanted to take the poor child home and admonish her father to have better care of his daughter and not let her stray into such dreadful places again.

'Where do you live, Benedicta? I pray you tell me.'

'Here.'

'What! here? Ah, my child, here is only the gallows.'