Mary did not answer, but still kept her face hidden.
“Come alonger me, darling,” continued the woman. She took Mary’s arm, and half-dragged, half-led her into the room above. The child’s hat had fallen off, and the light streamed down upon her bright yellow hair and her frightened brown eyes, as she raised them timidly to the dark faces round her. The woman started and gave a quick significant glance at her husband.
“You live at the parson’s house in Wensdale, don’t yer, dearie?” she said coaxingly.
“Yes,” said Mary. She wondered how the woman knew.
“But you’re not the parson’s child,” continued the woman. “Give me your hand.” She bent, muttering over it: “No, no, not the parson’s child—you belong to dark people, for all so white and fair you are.”
Was the woman a witch? Mary gazed at her with eyes wide with fear, and the man and boy stood by with a cunning grin on their faces.
“Seven years ago,” the woman went on in a sing-song tone, “you was lost. Seven years ago you was found. Seven years you’ve lived with strangers, and now you’ve come to yer own people.”
What did she mean? These dirty, dark, evil-looking tramps her own people! Mary took courage and drew herself haughtily upright.
“You’re not my people,” she said boldly. “I live at the vicarage, with Mr and Mrs Vallance. I must go back to the others—it’s getting late.”
“Not so fast, my little queen,” said the woman, still holding her hand and gazing at the palm. “What’s this ’ere little token I ketch sight on? Why, it’s a little shoe! A little leather shoe with a row o’ brass nails an’ a brass toe. Now, by that ’ere token I know you belongs to us. Yonder’s yer father, and yonder’s yer brother; nobody and nothin’ can’t take you from us now.”