ay, to the keeper's cottage and
breakfast wi' him, and away to the warren, and not home, mayhap, till
evening; and another time down to the lake, and bathe there, and spend
the day fishin' there, or paddlin' about in the boat. Well, no one
could say what was gone wi' him; only this, that his hat was found by
the lake, under a haathorn that grows thar to this day, and 'twas
thought he was drowned bathin'. And the squire's son, by his second
marriage, with this Madam Crowl that lived sa dreadful lang, came in
far the estates. It was his son, the ald lady's grandson, Squire
Chevenix Crowl, that owned the estates at the time I came to
Applewale.

"There was a deal o' talk lang before my aunt's time about it; and
'twas said the step-mother knew more than she was like to let out. And
she managed her husband, the ald squire, wi' her white-heft and
flatteries. And as the boy was never seen more, in course of time the
thing died out of fowks' minds.

"I'm goin' to tell ye noo about what I sid wi' my own een.

"I was not there six months, and it was winter time, when the ald lady
took her last sickness.

"The doctor was afeard she might a took a fit o' madness, as she did
fifteen years befoore, and was buckled up, many a time, in a
strait-waistcoat, which was the very leathern jerkin I sid in the
closet, off my aunt's room.

"Well, she didn't. She pined, and windered, and went off, torflin',
torflin', quiet enough, till a day or two before her flittin', and
then she took to rabblin', and sometimes skirlin' in the bed, ye'd
think a robber had a knife to her throat, and she used to work out o'
the bed, and not being strong enough, then, to walk or stand, she'd
fall on the flure, wi' her ald wizened hands stretched before her
face, and skirlin' still for mercy.

"Ye may guess I didn't go into the room, and I used to be shiverin' in
my bed wi' fear, at her skirlin' and scrafflin' on the flure, and
blarin' out words that id make your skin turn blue.

"My aunt, and Mrs. Wyvern, and Judith Squailes, and a woman from
Lexhoe, was always about her. At last she took fits, and they wore her
out.

"T' sir was there, and prayed for her; but she was past praying with.
I suppose it was right, but none could think there was much good in
it, and sa at lang last she made her flittin', and a' was over, and
old Dame Crowl was shrouded and coffined, and Squire Chevenix was
wrote for. But he was away in France, and the delay was sa lang, tha