Madame Dalibard shrank from the hands at that moment employed upon herself, and said,—
“It was not, then, the first corpse you have laid out for the grave?”
“Not by many.”
“And did any of those you so prepared die of the same complaint?”
“I can’t say, I’m sure,” returned Martha. “I never inquires how folks die; my bizness was to nurse ‘em till all was over, and then to sit up. As they say in my country, ‘Riving Pike wears a hood when the weather bodes ill.’” [If Riving Pike do wear a hood, The day, be sure, will ne’er be good. A Lancashire Distich.]
“And when you sat up with Mr. Varney’s uncle, did you feel no fear in the dead of the night,—that corpse before you, no fear?”
“Young Mr. Varney said I should come to no harm. Oh, he’s a clever man! What should I fear, ma’am?” answered Martha, with a horrid simplicity.
“You have belonged to a very religious sect, I think I have heard you say,—a sect not unfamiliar to me; a sect to which great crime is very rarely known?”
“Yes, ma’am, some of ‘em be tame enough, but others be weel [whirlpool] deep!”
“You do not believe what they taught you?”