“Come,” said I, “you are not deaf, I hope, nor dumb.”
“Send I may niver!” the fellow ejaculated, slowly and with contemplation: “’tis an unseemly sight, yet tickling to the mirthfully minded. Haw—haw!” He check’d his laughter suddenly and stood like a stone image beside his horses.
“Good sir,” said Delia, laying a hand on my arm (for I was growing nettled), “your mirth is a riddle: but tell us our way and you are free to laugh.”
“Oh, Scarlet—Scarlet!” answer’d he: “and to me, that am a man o’ blushes from my cradle!”
Convinced by this that the fellow must be an idiot, I told him so, and left him staring after us; nor heard the sound of his horses moving on again for many minutes.
After this we met about a dozen on the road, and all paus’d to stare. But from one—an old woman—we learn’d we were walking toward Marlboro’, and about noon were over the hills and looking into the valley beyond.
’Twas very like the other vale; only a pleasant stream wound along the bottom, by the banks of which the road took us. Here, by a bridge, we came to an inn bearing the sign of “The Broad Face,” and entered: for Captain Settle’s stock of victuals was now done. A sour-fac’d woman met us at the door.
“Do you stay here,” Delia advis’d me, “and drink a mug of beer while I bargain with the hostess for fresh food.” She follow’d the sour-fac’d woman into the house.
But out she comes presently with her cheeks flaming and a pair of bright eyes. “Come!” she commanded, “come at once!” Setting down my half emptied mug, I went after her across the bridge and up the road, wondering. In this way we must have walk’d for a mile or more before she turn’d and stamp’d her little foot—
“Horrible!” she cried. “Horrible—wicked—shameful! Ugh!” There were tears in her eyes.