"God's word! Be I drunk or dreaming? Are you alive, or dead an' prying here a ghost from the grave? If you'm dead I don't care a button for 'e! An' if you'm alive——"
"I'm quite alive, Lovey Lee," said Grace without flinching before the ancient's terrific face.
"Alive, be you? Then 'tis the last minute you shall live to say you'm alive! How did you get here? Tell me, or I'll kill you by inches—a finger to a time!"
"I've done you no harm, Lovey. And I'll thank you to speak more quietly. There are men hunting for me on the Moor, and I've no wish for them to find me," said Grace firmly. As yet no fear had touched her heart.
"Find you! They'll not find you! God A'mighty won't find you. You'm dead a'ready!"
"I'm not dead at all; and I'm not going to die. If you'd listen, instead of screaming at me, I might tell you why I am here, and how I came here."
Lovey put the candle on a ledge above their heads; then she sat upon the fern couch that her grandson had spread for Grace.
"Get you up on your feet and stand afore me!" she said. "I'm mistress here—not you. Death! to think as ever I should allow any human but myself in this pit. Tell me truth how you found it—else I'll strangle you."
"The truth is easily told: and you shall pay dearly for these insults yet, you wicked woman! It was meant to marry me to Peter Norcot; and your grandson helped me to escape from that fate. John is always on the side of the weak. I owe my salvation to him. I am waiting for him now."
"Jack Lee found out then! Blast—but I needn't waste no words there. His thread's spun. So you runned from your faither an' that man? You might so soon think to trick Satan as Norcot. But I'll trick him. He can't marry dead bones. An' yet—there's money to it. Only I be so tight placed myself."