“And what might it be?” I inquired. “The moon?”
Mother Borton did not take this flippancy kindly. Her face grew darker and more evil as it was framed in the dancing shadows behind her.
“You can git a knife in ye as easy as winking if I'll jest keep my mouth shut,” she cried spitefully.
“Yes,” said I repentantly, putting my hand upon her arm. “But you are my very good friend, and will tell me what I ought to know.”
The creature's face lighted at my tone and action, and her eyes melted with a new feeling.
“That I will,” she said; “that I will, as if you were my own boy.”
She seized my hand and held it as she spoke, and looked intently, almost lovingly, on my face. Elsewhere I could have shivered at the thought of her touch. Here, with the bent figure amid the gloomy shadows of the den in which we sat, with the atmosphere of danger heavy about us, I was moved by a glow of kindly feeling.
“I was a-listening to 'em,” she continued in a low, earnest tone, glancing around fearfully as if she had the thought that some one else might be listening in turn. “I was a-listening, an' I heerd what they says.”
“Who said?” I inquired.
“The ones you knows on,” she returned mysteriously.