he said, 'Ye'll want na mair cantrips, I reckon.' She was
reet theer."

"Like eneuf," said several voices amid a laugh.

"He was hard on Mother Garth was Wilson," continued Matthew; "I nivver
could mak ought on it. He called her a witch, and seurly she is a laal
bit uncanny."

"Maybe she wasn't always such like," said Mr. Jackson.

"Maybe not, John," said Matthew; "but she was olas a cross-grained yan
sin the day she came first to Wy'burn."

"I thought her a harmless young body with her babby,' said Mr.
Jackson.

"Let me see," said Reuben Thwaite; "that must be a matter of
six-and-twenty year agone."

"Mair ner that," said Matthew. "It was long afore I bought my new
loom, and that's six-and-twenty year come Christmas."

"Ey, I mind they said she'd run away frae the man she'd wedded
somewhere in the north," observed Adam Rutledge through the pewter
which he had raised to his lips. "Ower fond of his pot for Sarah."

"Nowt o' t' sort," said Matthew. "He used to pommel and thresh her up
and doon, and that's why she cut away frae him, and that's why she's
sic a sour yan."

"Ey, that's reets on it," said Reuben.

"But auld Wilson's spite on her olas did cap me a laal bit," said
Matthew again. "He wanted her burnt for a witch. 'It's all stuff and
bodderment aboot the witches,' says I to him ya day; 'there be none.
God's aboon the devil!' 'Nay, nay,' says Wilson, 'it'll be past
jookin' when the heed's off. She'll do something for some of us yit.'"

"Hush," whispered Reuben, as at that moment the door opened and a
tall, ungainly young dalesman, with red hair and with a dogged
expression of face, entered the inn.

A little later, amid a whirl of piercing wind, Ralph Ray entered,
shaking the frozen snow from his cloak with long skirts, wet and cold,
his staff in his hand, and his dog at his heels. Old Matthew gave him
a cheery welcome.

"It's like ye'd as lief be in this snug room as on the fell to-neet,
Ralph?" There was a twinkle in the old man's eye; he had meant more
than he said.

"I'd full as soon be here as in Sim's cave, Matthew, if that's what
you mean," said Ralph, as he held the palms of his hands to the fire
and then rubbed them on his knees.

"Thou wert nivver much of a fool, Ralph," Matthew answered. And with a
shovel that facetious occupant of the hearth lifted another cob of
turf on to the fire.

"It's lang sin' Sim sat aboon sic a lowe as that," he added, with a
motion of his head downwards