"What ho, wench!" said he; "art watching for a husband?" His sharp shrill voice grated on her ear like the cry of the screech-owl.
"I came to meet thee!" said she firmly. He broke forth into a loud laugh at this reply, more terrible than the most violent expression of hate or malignity. No wonder, in those ages, that it was supposed to be the operation of some demon, animate in his form, controlling and exercising the bodily functions to his own malignant designs.
"Where is he whom I seek?" inquired the maiden.
"Ask the clods of the valley, and the dust unto which man departs!" he replied, pointing significantly to the gulf at his feet.
"Nay," said Marian, apparently to humour the fantastical turn of his ideas; "thou knowest if he sell that grave to another, he shall escape, and the doom shall be foregone."
"Ay, lassie; but there be no fools now-a-days, I wot, to buy a man's grave over his head for the sake of a bargain!"
"I warrant thee now, Steenie, but thou hast hidden him hereabout." She said this in as careless and indifferent a tone as she could well assume.
"I am but a-keeping of him safe till his time comes. Neither priest nor Presbyterian shall cheat me out of him. He's mine as sure as that grave gives not back its prey."
"Good wot, I reckon so; but living men may die; and this pick never, for man or woman, opened a mouth that was left to gape long without victuals."