“You mustn’t thank us, anybody would do the same,” said Aline; “you cannot think how sorry we are to see you like this, and you must just call me Aline the same as I call you Joan. See! Audry and I have brought you a few flowers and some little things from the Hall that old Elspeth has put up for us, and when the leech comes, he will soon make you well again.”
“I sometimes wonder whether I shall ever get well any more; each time I have to go back to bed I seem to be worse. All my folk are gone now and I am the only one left. The flowers are right bonnie though and the smell of them does me good,” she added, as she lifted the bunch of early carnations that the children had brought.
After she had spoken she let her hand fall and lay quite still gazing at the two as though even the few words had been too great an effort.
The bed looked very uncomfortable and Aline and Audry did their best to smooth it a little, after which Joan closed her eyes and seemed inclined to sleep.
“I wish we could get her up to the Hall,” said Aline in a whisper, “the smoke is so terrible and I never saw such a dreadful place as that bed.”
“Mother would never hear of it; so it’s no use your thinking of such a thing.”
They returned to the fire and sat down on the stools for a few moments before leaving.
“Ay, the child is about right,” said the old man, “her poor mother brought her here from Kirkoswald when her man died last November. Sarah Moulton was a sort of cousin of my wife who has been lying down in Middleton churchyard this many a long year. She lived in this very house as a girl and seemed to think she would be happier here than in Kirkoswald. Well, it was not the end of March before she had gone too and the lassie is all that is left.”
The children bade farewell and went out. As they passed the end of the house they saw the black figure of an old woman creeping round the back as though not wishing to be seen.
“Oh, there’s that horrible old woman! ‘Moll o’ the graves,’” said Audry; “let us run. I wonder what she has been doing listening round the house; I hate her. You know, Aline, they say she does all manner of dreadful things, that it was she who made all old Benjamin Darley’s sheep die. Some people say she eats children and if she cannot get hold of them alive she digs them up from their graves at night. I do not believe it, but come along.”