"Don't you tell that trash, or you'll make me your enemy I promise you! A gold mine—some 'crock o' gold' hid at a rainbow's foot or in a dead man's grave—like the fools tell about up here. I wish I knowed where. Do a woman salt down reptiles and make her meal of blind-worms and berries if she have got a gold mine hidden?"
"That's just what father says you would do," answered Grace.
"Tell Malherb to mind his business," she answered sourly, "or 'twill be the worse for him. 'Twill take him all his time to find a gold mine under Fox Tor, anyway, let alone the Lord's hand being against him for stealing the earth from the meek, as was meant to inherit it."
"Nothing of the sort," answered Grace, with great indignation. "She's a horrid old story-teller, Peter."
But Norcot never quarrelled with man or mouse.
"Mrs. Lee is naturally against the Duchy," he said. "The Duchy we all know. But, on the other hand, nobody alive can blame your father for availing himself of its propensities."
"He'll curse himself for a fool yet, however," said the old woman.
"I shall not be friendly with you any more, Lovey Lee," answered Grace frankly. "You're greedier than the Duchy, and you don't tell the truth. You wouldn't be so unpleasant if your conscience didn't hurt you. Henceforth I shall think with my father that you took the amphora."
"You may think what you please. It won't prove nothing but that you've got a Malherb habit of mind and be your faither's daughter."
"Come, Peter!" cried Grace. "I'll hear no more."