“Nor I!” said Janet, with a great shudder.
“It would not be good for you,” suggested the Squire; “for the first glance from those dead and glittering eyes strikes any person of the lower orders dumb, the second, blind; the third, dead. So I'm INFORMED. Therefore—LET ME ADVISE YOU NEVER TO GO NEAR CAIRNHOPE OLD CHURCH AT NIGHT.”
“Not I, sir,” said the simple woman.
“Nor your children: unless you are very tired of them.”
“Heaven forbid, sir! But oh, sir, we thought it might be a warning like.”
“To whom?”
“Why, sir, th' old Squire lies there; and heaps more of your folk: and so Abel here was afear'd—but you are the best judge; we be no scholars. Th' old church warn't red-hot from eend to eend for naught: that's certain.”
“Oh it is me you came to warn?” said Raby, and his lip curled.
“Well, sir,” (mellifluously), “we thought you had the best right to know.”
“My good woman,” said the warned, “I shall die when my time comes. But I shall not hurry myself, for all the gentlemen in Paradise, nor all the blackguards upon earth.”