Ascending to the loft she
pronounced supper all ready and bade me sit down and eat. But this I
could not do for my pride's sake as I freely confessed, which seemed
to surprise her not a little.
"Well then," said she, perceiving me thus determined, "you may eat if
you are truly hungry, because none o' the money I prigs pays for this
duck."
So down I sat forthwith and never in all my life enjoyed any meal
quite so much, as I told her.
"Well, then, eat it!" said she in her ungracious, half-sullen
manner.
"I mean to," I retorted, "though I must say you are a wonderful cook."
At this she merely scowled at me and I did not venture another remark
until the sharper pangs of hunger were appeased, then, sighing, I
spoke again. "Yes, I repeat you are a wonderful cook! But then
everything seems so wonderful to me--this place, for instance--so
strange and so solitary!"
"It is!" she answered, leaning her chin on her hands and staring at me
across the table. "That's why I runs away here to hide from the
_chals_ or when in any trouble wi' old Azor--yes, 'tis a very
lonely place, which do make me wonder if you be afeard o' ghosts?"
"No--that is, I don't think so--if such things do really exist. But
why do you ask?"
"A woman was murdered here once an' they say her spirit walks, so
there's few people dare venter here by day an' never a one by night,
an' that's why 'tis so lonely an' that's why I loves the place."
"Then you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Well I sees strange things among the Romans; there's the
_dukkerin_ and _dukkeripen_, an' the Walkers o' the Heath.
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