“I’ll back Billy agen ’ee for a gallon, if ye like,” cried a man.
“Nay, nay,” cried a loud but not inharmonious voice; “if old Nick were here——”
“Hoosh! hoosh!” shouted out half a dozen of the throng.
“Who cares about your hooshing? I beant afeared of no mortal thing; no immortal, for the matter of that; neither man, beast, or sperrit.”
The voice came from a young woman, who was finely, though perhaps almost too lustily, formed.
“Ye’ere all a pack of fools!” said she, giving her head an indignant shake. “A frightenen yourselves about Mother Brickett’s ghost. Who is there as has seen it, I should like to know?”
“I ha’,” said a man. “I wer a walking across the common here, when I found a somethink white and ghastly walking by my side.”
“How big was it?”
“About my height, as nigh as can be. An’ it never sed a word. An’ just as I was ready to drop, it fanished away.”
“And then we all knows,” said another, “as only t’other night her voice was heard in the passage by the tap-room where she called Brickett three times by name, and many bein’ by. An’ it was only yesternight as she came and patted the white cow while Clara wer a milkin’ on it.”