"Then there are witches," she went on, more calmly. "They slink about the house and the garden in the shape of cats. Terrible noises they make at night."
"Why, they are cats, like enough; they seek the rats and mice. Troth, for horrible noises—"
"Nay, but I know better. T'other evening Jeremy was late fetching home the cow from the field, and so when I had done milking 'twas near nightfall. As I was crossing the yard with the milk, what did I see but an old woman leaning on her stick, by the corner of the house. She was chewing and mumbling, and looking straight at me. I saw 'twas old Goody Banks, whom the whole countryside knows to be a witch."
"Foh! a poor crazy beldame, no doubt come to beg or steal a crust or a cup of milk."
"I thought so too, at first, after I had got over the fright of seeing her—for 'tis rare we ever see any one at the Grange. But as I was going to speak to her, she looked at me so evilly I remembered what the countryfolk say of her, and such a fright came over me again, I cried out, 'Avaunt in the name of Jesus!' and flung the pail of milk at her. I heard a kind of whisk,—for I had closed my eyes as I threw,—and when I opened them, there, instead of the old woman, stood a great cat, staring at me with the very same evil eyes! So I knew she must be a witch—turning into a cat before my very eyes!"
"But your eyes were closed, you say."
"Ay, she had bewitched me to close 'em, no doubt, so I might not see how she transformed herself."
"Why, 'tis all clear. The whisk you heard was of the old woman's running away from the milk-pail. The cat had been there all the while, belike, but you had not seen it for the old woman."
"I tell you I know what I saw," she replied, growing vehement again. "You need not think to fool me, and turn me off. Sith you have no other place for me to live, I am content to live at the Grange; but you must send a man there to guard the place against ghosts and witches. You must do it,—a stout, strong man afraid of nothing; no shivering old dotard like Jeremy, who durs'n't stick his nose out of his bedclothes between dusk and daybreak. You promised to give me a home, and I to keep silent and unseen; but a house of spirits and witches is no fit home, and so what becomes of our agreement? So best send a man."
"Why, if it be not possible?"