He dropped back into his chair with a groan.
“Go, then,” he muttered, “and God help you!”
I turned and left him. My heart was blazing with a fierce resentment. But I would not leave the house till my veins ran cooler, for no advantage of temper should be on the side of that frosty bloodsucker.
I wandered downstairs, past the door of the room of silence, but the rough jeering of the wheel within drove me away to where I could be out of immediate earshot of it.
From the kitchen at the back came the broken, whining voice of old Peggy Rottengoose, who yet survived and waited upon the meager household with a ghoulish faithfulness that no time could impair.
The words of some sardonic song came sterilely from her withered lips. She was apt at such grewsome ditties:
“I saw three ravens up a tree—
Heigho!
I saw three ravens up a tree;
And they were black as black could be—