"I'll come down presently when I've tumbled into some of my clothes."
Then the head disappeared, and the casement was shut.
After the lapse of a few minutes, a light appeared at the window of the lower room, and the door was slowly unlocked and unbarred.
Then the old woman appeared in the doorway. She wore her huge white-frilled nightcap, that fluttered in the wind about the shrivelled face it enclosed, but she presented an extremely limp and attenuated appearance in her person.
"I've been a turnin' over in my head," she said, "and ten chances to half-a-one, if that there child hev been squealin' so long, it's either broke a blood vessel, or will die o' 'plexy. There'll be a purty expense to the parish. There'll be two buryings laid on it that oughten't to be. That means an extra penny in the rates. If them there chaps wanted to murder a man, why didn't they go and do it in Hampshire, and not go a burdenin' of this county an' parish? There's rayson in everything."
"Do you really suppose the child will die?" asked the boy, more concerned about the life than about the rates.
"How can I say? I've had precious little to do wi' babies, thanks be. Now, sharp, what is it you want? I'm perishin' wi' cold."
"May I have a bottle and some milk, and a lantern?"
"You can have wot you wants, only I protest I'll have no babies foist on me here." Then she added, "I will not trust you byes. Show me your hands that you ain't hidin' of it behind yer back."
"I assure you the child is in Bideabout's shed. Do be quick, and help. I am so afraid lest it die, and becomes a wanderer."