"Hast 'a getten owt to sup, mother?"
Mother Strangeways scrambled to the cupboard, and took out a black bottle.
"Rum, begow!" muttered the son. "Fetch us a mug, mother, an' let's be making a start."
He did make a start, in good earnest, and the old witch joined him. There was but one pewter-pot in the cottage, and this they passed freely from one to the other. The glowing peat lit up their faces, as they sat on either side of the hearth. A little soughing wind was creeping round the chimney-stack.
"It's fine an' lonely up here," said Mother Strangeways at last. "Canst 'a hear th' wind a-sobbing i' th' chimbley, lad? Oh ay, it's easy to mak free wi' th' devil, come storm or calm.' She hugged the bottle to her breast, waiting till Joe should have finished the last of the mugful.
"Doan't! Nay, doan't," he pleaded, with a shiver. "I war niver so fearful fond o' th' devil, an' he flairs me."
"Flairs thee, tha sawny? He's a better mak of a stay-by, let me tell thee, than this God 'at th' pious folk prate on. He made th' marsh, I tak it, what grows a herb to cure all ills. He made th' snaw an' th' frost—ay, th' snaw an' th' frost, what taks th' gentlefolk off now an' again."
She paused to chew the cud of some tasty reminiscence. Then she glanced furtively towards the grandfather's clock that stood in the corner. Whatever the size of the cottage, and mean as its every other appointment might be, there was always a brave old eight-day clock to be seen in the dwellings on Marshcotes Moor.
The beldame pointed one hand at the clock, while the fingers of the other went scrabbling up and down her ragged skirt.
"Sitha, lad! It wobbles summat fearful, does th' owd clock. First to right, then to left, it wobbles reg'lar. Tick-tack, tick-tack, goes th' inside—an' tick-tack, tick-tack goes th' outside, keeping time. It's a sign, Joe; I'm noan long for this world, now that th' owd clock hes ta'en to wobbling. Five an' eighty year we've bided together—tick-tack, tick-tack, me an' th' clock—an' now it's started to dither. Tha'll noan hev a grandam sooin, Joe."