And Matt, starting to his feet, plunged the dipper into the barrel of raw sap that stood on the floor. Mad Peggy seized it greedily and drained the great ladle to the dregs. Then she filled it again with delicious fluid, and then again, and yet again, leaving Matt aghast at her gigantic capacity. She was filling the dipper a fourth time, but he pulled it out of her hand, fearing she would do herself a mischief.
“I’m so thirsty!” she whispered, plaintively, in her musical accents.
“What are you doin’ in the woods at this hour?” answered Matt, sternly.
“I’m looking for Peter. What a bonny fire!” And she bent over it, holding out her long, white hands to the flames.
Matt divined vaguely that Peter must be the sweetheart whose desertion had crazed the poor creature. It was reported in Cobequid Village that the handsome German immigrant who had been betrothed to her had gone off forever on the pretext of “sugaring” when he learned that she was one of the Water-Drinkers—the unhappy family whose ancestor had refused a cup of cold water to a strange old woman, who thereupon put the curse upon him and his descendants that they
