"Ah! it isn't his real home," explained Betty, "and that Mrs. Howard is a terrible person."
She was going to add that the old lady had the reputation of being a witch, but the accusation seemed too absurd to be urged in broad daylight in the school-room. So she only mentioned a few of Lewis's tales about Mrs. Howard's cruelty to him.
Captain West listened for a minute and then fairly burst out laughing. "Do you really mean that you believed all that?" he said. "You seriously thought boys were stolen, and shut up in dark cellars, and all the rest of it?"
The children hung their heads, suddenly feeling rather ashamed of the ease with which they had been imposed upon, for they could see that their father did not believe a word of the horrors.
"But other people beside Lewis Brand have told us that Mrs. Howard is very dreadful and mysterious," observed Madge, who did not at all like finding herself quite in the wrong. "When Mrs. Bunn is weeding the garden she sometimes tells us what people in the village say—"
"She would be better employed pulling up groundsel!" interrupted Captain West. "But what does she tell you about starving boys in cellars full of black-beetles?"
Madge was bound to admit that she had never heard this particular accusation against Mrs. Howard from anybody except Lewis.
"But people say she is mad and never will see strangers. And we have looked at her over the wall, so we know something about it," she persisted.
"And you saw a very delicate-looking old lady tottering along and nodding her head? Just so. Now listen to me. Many years ago poor Mrs. Howard had a very serious illness, which left her with some disease of the nerves so that she cannot keep her head still for a moment. Ever since then she has shut herself up and avoided seeing strangers, as she is very shy about her infirmity being noticed. And I must say," concluded Captain West, "that I am vexed to think my children should have tried to pry into what did not in the least concern them."
"I am sorry we looked at her, if that is the reason she nodded so funnily to the cows," said Madge. "But were not any of the stories Lewis told us true? About the cellars, and the jailer with the gray beard?"