"Are you frightened, Lucy?" asked Mistress Lynn.
"Maybe it's the last day," replied the girl.
The old woman's face was ghastly as the face of a corpse in the strange light which filtered through the windows. The kitchen seemed to be swallowed up by a weird sepulchral vapour.
She laughed.
"Get down on thy knees, Lucy Lynn," she said ironically, "get to thy knees and pray for a sinful old woman and an innocent lass. Don't forget Peter Fleming forbye. I misgive me he'll come in for a wetting if he doesn't tie wings to his heels. He went up the fells a few hours ago."
"Peter! when? I didn't see him."
"Why shouldsta? He came to see me, and you were in the dairy."
Lucy seized the poker to stir the peats; it was heavy bar of iron and clanged like a bell when she knocked it in her nervousness and irritation against the stone jambs of the fireplace. Then she jumped up and looked in at the cow-house, where the hind was just stalling the cattle. There she saw Jan Straw, sitting with his hands on his knees, staring into vacancy. He did not seem to see her, but he laughed like a mindless creature at every rumble of distant thunder.
"It's going to be a fearful storm, Tom," she said to the hind.
"A regular smasher!" he replied.