“I spoke to her, sor. We don’t allow no strangers that we don’t know to git past us, sor.�
“You say ‘we.’ Whom else do you mean besides yourself?�
“Nobody else now, sor. There used to be three of us, in the old days of Mr. Cephas Lynne, sor.�
“Oh, you were here then, were you?�
“I was, sor.�
“Well, what was said between you and the woman?�
“I axed her where she was goin’ and who she wanted to see, sor, and she said she was after takin’ the bundle she carried, to Mrs. Maguire, who is the cook; and wid that I let her go on about her business.�
“What time did she go out again?�
“She didn’t go out ag’in, at all, at all, sor; leastwise I didn’t see her if she did, and I was working forninst that path all the afternoon, at that. And just now, sor, after this gentleman had been axin’ me about it, I stopped and axed Mrs. Maguire what had become of the woman who took the bundle to her, and sure, sor, Mrs. Maguire says that there wasn’t any such woman at all, at all, and that she hadn’t got no bundle, and she wanted to know what I was talkin’ about, so she did. Sure, the woman didn’t go into the house at all, and didn’t see Mrs. Maguire, and it’s my belief that she just walked around the house on the other side of it where there is no cemented path, and went out again by the same way she came in. She had a swate voice, so she did, and I’d guess her to be young, and purty, too; but more than that, divil a bit do I know, sor.�