"What wair they, Huldy?"
"The lives of pirates and the trials of murderers—about Murrell's band and the poisonings of Lucretia Chapman, the execution of Thistlewood, and Captain Kidd's voyages; the last I read her was the story of Burke and Hare, who smothered people to death in the Canongate of Edinburgh last year to sell their bodies to the doctors."
"Must you read such things to her?"
"I think that is the only influence I have over her. Sometimes she looks so horribly at me, and mutters such threats, that I fear she is going to kill me, and so I hasten to get her favorite books and read to her the dark crimes of desperate men and women, and she laughs and listens like one hearing pleasant tales. My soul grows sick, but I see she is fascinated, and I read on, trying to close my mind to the cruel narrative."
"Huldy, air you a purty devil drawin' me outen my heart to ruin me?"
"No, no; oh, do not believe that! I suppose all men are cruel, and all I ever knew were negro-traders, or I should believe you too gentle to live by that brutal work. I looked at you lying in this bed, and pity and love came over me to see you, so young and fair, entering upon this life of treachery and sin."
Levin gazed at her intently, and then raised up and looked around him, and peered down through the old dormers into the green yard, and the floody river hastening by with such nobility.
"Air we watched?" he inquired.
"By none in this house. All the men are away, making ready for the hunt to-morrow night. The river is watched, and you would not be let escape very far, but in this house I am your jailer. Joe told me he would sell me if I let you get away."
Levin listened and looked once more ardently and wonderingly at her, and fell upon his knees at her uncovered feet.