“What a strange fellow you are! What makes you walk all that way to come and sit here of an evening?”
“It's just a little habit I've got lately. For something to do till bedtime.”
“Then you're not afraid?”
Her jesting tone gave me courage; I felt myself on surer ground, and answered:
“No, that's just the trouble. I wanted to learn to shiver and shake.”
“Learn to shiver and shake? Like the boy in the fairy tale. Now where did you read about that, I wonder?”
“I don't know. In some book or other, I suppose.”
Pause.
“Why wouldn't you come and work for us when Father asked you?”
“I'd be no good at that sort of work. I'm going out on the roads now with another man.”