The old woman shaded her light with one hand while she scrutinized that wild face.
"A face I have never seen," she thought; "some poor crazed thing."
"Come in from the cold. You are shivering," she said, in great kindliness, "your teeth knock together."
"No, I'm not cold, but he is. Go seek for him. He will not answer me; but you are his mother. He is not angry with you. I will get out of the way. He will not show himself while I am there; but when you call, it will be different. What are you standing there for? Call up your men; get lanterns. He is hiding away from me; but you are his mother."
Before old Mrs. Storms could answer these words, crowded each upon the other, the girl stepped from the door-stone and was gone.
"Poor thing, poor thing, her face is strange, and she talks of a husband as if I were his mother. I was frightened in spite of that, as if it were Richard she spoke of. So like my own dear lad, to risk his life for another. It was that which set me trembling, nothing else; for I knew well enough that he was safe at the fair."
"What is it?" questioned the farmer, when his wife came back to her bed-room.
"Only a woman that has lost her mind, I think," answered the wife, blowing out her candle. "I would fain have had her come in, but she is gone."
"Then what makes ye tremble and shake so, woman? Have ye found another corpse-light in the candle?" The old man said this with a low, chuckling laugh; for he delighted in ridiculing his wife's superstitions.
"No; I had not thought of that," answered the dame. But all that night, while Judith Hart was travelling the road to her father's house, unconscious of fatigue and fleeing, as it were, from herself, this loving mother lay restlessly awake by the side of her husband; for he, in his good-natured jeering, had frightened sleep from her.