With a look of great contempt for the incredulity of her spouse, she replied—
"Ay, goodman, sit there and scoff your fill. If't hadn't been for my care and endeavours you had been penniless ere now. But so it is, I may slave night and day, I reckon. The whole roof-tree, as a body may say, is on my shoulders, and what thanks? More hisses than thanks, more knocks than fair words."
Never so well pleased as when opportunity was afforded for grumbling, the dame addressed herself again to her evening avocations.
Pondering deeply what should be the issue of these things, Gervase set out with Grace Ashton to her house at Clegg Hall, a good mile distant. Evening had closed in—a chill wind blew from the hills. The west had lost its splendour, but a pure transparent brightness filled its place, across which the dark wavy outline of the high moorlands rested in deep unvarying shadow. In these bright depths a still brighter star hung, pure and of a diamond-like lustre, the precursor, the herald of a blazing host just rising into view.
As they walked on, it may well be supposed that the strange occurrences of the last few hours were the engrossing theme of their discourse.
"My mother is a little too superstitious, I am aware," said Gervase; "but what I have witnessed to-night has rendered me something more credulous on this head than aforetime."
"I don't half like this neighbourhood," said his companion, looking round. "It hath an ill name, and I could almost fancy the Red Woman again, just yonder in our path."
She looked wistfully; it was only the mist creeping lazily on with the stream.
They were now ascending the hill towards Beil or Belfield, where the Knights Templars had formerly an establishment. Not a vestage now remains, though at that period a ruinous tower covered with ivy, a gateway, and an arch, existed as relics of their former grandeur.
"Here lived the Lady Eleanor Byron," said Grace, pointing to the old hall close by, and as though an unpleasant recollection had crossed her. She shuddered as they passed by the grim archway beneath the tower. Whether it was fancy or reality she knew not, but as she looked curiously through its ivied tracery she thought the Red Woman was peering out maliciously upon them. She shrank aside, and pointed to the spot; but there was nothing visible save the dark and crumbling ruins, from which their steps were echoed with a dull and sullen sound.