"You'm a liar," he answered in the vulgar tongue. "'Tis down in my buke."
This was sufficient evidence, and Mary could only wag her head at it. She had a reverence for things that were written in books.
"Be yew going to break the mommet?" she asked; and Peter replied that it was his intention to make yet another clay doll, break it into fragments, and commit the original doll, which was the only one capable of working evil, to the fire as before. Thus he would earn the crock of gold, and obtain vengeance upon Pendoggat also. Pixies were simple folk, who could easily be hoodwinked by astute human beings; and he ventured to propose that the mommet should be baked upon Mary's hearthstone in future, so that Grandfather would see nothing of the operation which had made him sick.
Mary remained an agnostic. She could understand Grandfather when he played impish pranks upon them, but when it came to bold brazen speech she could not believe. Peter had been asleep and imagined it all. They argued the matter until they nearly quarrelled, and then Mary said she was going to look about her brother's residence to try and find out whether any one had been playing a joke upon him. They went outside, and were relieved to discover that a change had taken place in the weather. Evidently judgment was not imminent, Betty Middleweek could cease paying her debts, and the chapel could be closed again. The blue light had faded, the clouds were higher, and had turned to ghostly grey.
"Aw, Peter, 'tis nought but snow," said Mary cheerfully.
"Snow never made Gran'vaither talk avore," Peter reminded her.
Mary looked about her brother's little hut without seeing anything unusual. Then she strode around the walls thereof, and her sharp eyes soon perceived a branch of dry furze lying about a yard away from the side of the cot. She asked Peter if he had dropped it there, and he replied that it might have been there for days. "Wind would ha' took it away," said Mary. "There was wind in the night, but ain't been none since. That's been broke off from the linny."
At the end of the hut was a small shed, its sides made of old packing-cases, its roof and door composed of gorse twisted into hurdles. The back wall of the cot, a contrivance of stones plastered together with clay, was also the end wall of the linhay. Mary went into the linhay, which was used by Peter as a place for storing peat. She soon made a discovery, and called for the lantern. When it was brought she pulled out a loose stone about the centre of the wall, and holding the lantern close to the hole saw at once a black board which looked like panelling, but was the back of the clock-case. Grandfather stood against that wall; and in the middle of the plank was a hole which had been bored recently.
"Go'ye into the hut and ask Gran'vaither how he be," called Mary.
Peter toddled off, got before the old clock, and inquired with solicitude: "How be 'ye, Gran'vaither?"