“Why, whatever be to do here?” she inquired.
Joe uttered a kind of howl, and burrowed into the hedge.
“She be overlookin’ of we,” he shouted. “The witch be overlookin’ of we.”
“Don’t ye take no notice, my dear woman,” said Abel Bond, the man who had before spoken. “They be but a lot o’ silly bwoys a-talkin’ nonsense.”
“Witch!” cried Joe.
“Witch! witch!” echoed the rest.
Ann looked from one to the other of the grinning faces that kept popping up over the rail, and disappearing again.
“Whatever be they a-talkin’ on?” she gasped.
“You be a witch, Ann,” cried Joe. “If you was served right you’d be ducked in the pond. E-es, that you would.”
A small boy, fired with a desire to distinguish himself, picked up a clod of earth, and flung it at her with so true an aim that it grazed her cheek.