“Well, well, come down, come along,” she said, more tenderly than was her wont, and watching her face hard from the corners of her eyes. She was convinced that the “old soldier” was the cause of these horrors.
“Put your arm over my shouther, ma’am; there—that’s it—an’ I’ll put mine round you, if you don’t think I’m making too bold. There now, you’re more easy, I think.”
And as they got on through the passage she asked—
“’Twas you that skritched, hey?”
“I? I dare say—did I?”
“Ay did ye, with a will, whoever skritched. Ye seen summat. What may ye have seen that frightened ye like that?”
“We’ll talk by-and-by. I’m ill—I’m horribly ill. Come away.”
“Come, then, if ye like best, ma’am,” said Mildred Tarnley, leading her through the kitchen, and by the outer door into the open air, but she had hardly got a step into the yard when the young lady, holding her fast, stopped short in renewed terrors.
“Oh, Mildred, if she follows us, if she overtook us out here?”
“Hoot, ma’am, who are ye afeard on? Is it that crazy blind woman, or who?”