“Much hotter, I know,” said the woman, meaningly, as she went on spreading the table with the requisites for a meal—cold pink bacon, a tempting loaf, rich yellow butter, and a couple of ale-horns, with other requisites for the evening repast.
Master Peasegood had an angry reply upon his lips, but he wiped it off with his handkerchief, and walked to the window to see if his expected guest was on the way, while Mistress Hilberry went on talking.
“They’ve seen the lights again, Master Peasegood.”
“Tut, woman: fie on thee! How can you believe such things.”
“Because I’ve seen them myself, sir,” said the woman, tartly. “Strange ungodly lights dancing up and down, and moving through the forest, and Mistress Croftly and others have seen them since.”
“Marshy exhalations, luminous vapours, terrestrial lamps, Mistress Hilberry.”
“I daresay they be, sir,” said the woman with asperity. “It don’t matter to me what you call them, but they’re spirits, and just a year ago, about this time, Martin Lee was struck down by one of them with a noise like thunder. He was an ailing man for a twelvemonth after, shivering regularly at times when he should have been sound and well.”
“Yes, I dare say,” said Master Peasegood. “Hah! here he is.”
He waddled down to the garden-gate, to open it for a thin, pale, grey man in a priest’s cassock, who grasped his hand warmly, and then with a scared, hunted look in his eye, which made him glance uneasily around, as if in search of danger, he accompanied Master Peasegood into the parlour, where Mistress Hilberry received them with a portentous sniff.
“Peace be with thee, my daughter,” the new-comer said, softly; but Mistress Hilberry seemed disposed to declare war, for she snorted, turned on her heel, and left the room with a good deal of rustling and noise.