"Aw, my dear, what be ye doing?" called Mary. "Nought on your feet, and your stockings vull o' snow. He never come for yew, my dear. He'm a gentleman, and wun't harm a purty maid. Be'ye mazed, my dear?"
"Mary," murmured the child very softly, raising both hands to her radiant head. "Come with me. I'm frightened."
"Us wun't let 'en touch ye," cried Mary valiantly. "I'll tak' my gurt stick to 'en if he tries."
Boodles caught her big hand and held it tightly. She had not even noticed the footprints. She did not know why all the villagers were out, or what they were doing on the moor.
"He won't wake," she said. "I have never known him sleep like this. I called him, and he does not answer. I shook him, and he would not move—and his eggs are hard-boiled by this time."
"Bide here, Peter," said Mary shortly.
Then the big strong hermaphrodite put a brawny arm about the soft shivering little maid, and led her inside the cottage, and up the stairs—how mournful they were, and how they creaked!—and into the quiet little bedroom, with the snow sliding down the window-panes, and the white light glaring upon the bed, where Abel Cain Weevil was lying upon his back, and yet not his back, but its back, for the old man was so very tired that he went on sleeping, though his eggs were hard-boiled and his little girl was terrified. The Brute had passed over in the night, not a very cruel Brute perhaps, and had placed his hand on the old man's mouth and stopped his breathing; and the poor old liar liked it so well he thought he wouldn't wake up again, but would go on sleeping for a long time, so that he would forget the rabbit-traps, and his petitions which nobody would sign, and his letters which had done no good. He had forgotten everything just then, but not Boodles, surely not his little maid, who was sobbing in Mary's savage and tender arms. He could not have forgotten the radiant little girl, and he would go on lying for her in his sleep if necessary, although he had been selfish enough to go away in such a hurry, and leave her—to the lonely life.