“Come, Zyp,” he said; “this isn’t the place for you any longer.”
They passed out of the room, she still clinging to him, so that her face was hidden.
I did not measure his words at that time. I had no thought for nice discriminations of tone; what did I care for anything any longer?
Presently I heard old Peg muttering again. She thought the room was emptied of us and she softly removed the face cloth once more.
“Ay, there ye lies, Modred—safe never to spy on poor old Rottengoose again! Ye were a bad lot, ye were; but Peg’s been more’n enough for you, she has, my lad.”
Suddenly she saw me out of the tail of her eye, and turned upon me, livid with fury.
“What are ye listening to, Renalt? A black curse on spies, Renalt, I say!”
Then her manner changed and she came fawning at me fulsomely.
“What a good lad to stay wi’ his brother! But Peg’ll do the tending, Renalt. She be a crass old body and apt to reviling in her speech, but she don’t mean it, bless you; it’s the tic doldrums in her head.”
I repelled the horrible old creature and fled from the room. What she meant I neither knew nor cared, for we had always looked upon her as a feckless body, with a big worm in her brain.