Jim, however, jested at her terrors, and himself made the round of the cottage, fastening the casements and securing the seldom-used front door. He stood outside the threshold while she drew the bolts and locked the back one.
“Get to thy bed early,” he called to her. “Go to sleep so fast as thou can; and first thing thou knows thou’lt hear me knockin’ to be let in.”
But somebody else knocked before Betty had any thought of going to bed; before, indeed, she had finished washing up the tea-things.
“Who’s that?” cried she, thrusting a scared face out of the window.
“It’s me, Mrs. Whittle—Dick Tuffin. I’ve a-brought ye back your hamper what I promised to mend for ye. Why, ye be shut up very early, bain’t ye?”
“Whittle’s gone travellin’ off a long way,” she answered with a scarcely perceptible sob. “There, he be gone to the river—’tis a good five mile off, he do say. I’m frightened to death here by myself.”
She heard him laugh in the darkness.
“How ’ud ye like to be my little wife,” he asked, “as bides alone night after night, wi’ nobody but the little ’un, now her mother have a-left her? I wouldn’t be afeard, Mrs. Whittle. Your house be so safe as a church; and there’s Duke—he’s big enough and strong enough to guard ye. Hark to en barkin’ now, the minute he do hear my voice!”
“Well, and that’s true,” agreed Betty in a more cheerful tone. “Thank ye for mendin’ the hamper, Mr. Tuffin. I’ll open the door in a minute.”
“No, don’t ye bother to do that,” said Dick. “The hamper’ll take no harm out here till morning. Good-night to ye.”