"Aye," he said, "doubtless there are a great many things which the good young man, Mr. Ablethorpe, cannot understand. Did you ever, by chance, try to teach him a little gardening?"
"No, and well for you, Hobby Stennis!" cried the woman, still threateningly.
"Well or ill," said the old man, "I go to see these bairns across the bridge and safe on their way home. Then to my weaving! Where is Jeremy?"
"How should I know were Jeremy is—on some of your errands, doubtless!" she cried. "Come, I will let down the drawbridge myself. Also I shall see to it that you offer no indignity to the one honest man who deigns to enter your house."
This quarrel between the two most sane inhabitants of Deep Moat Grange let me deeper into the secrets of that evil dwelling than anything else. At least, so I thought at the time. But I found afterwards that all I thought I knew had but lain on the surface. I had conceited to find Shallow Moat Grange, and lo! the name was no misnomer. The moat was Deep, indeed.
All the same, it was like coming out of a heated room, with many people therein, into the silence and chill of the winter stars, to get one's head outside that abominable house of the Grange. How good to pass by the lily clumps, and feel one's feet on green grass again! It seemed to me that even the dull and sullen moat could be crossed, if you only took it determinedly enough. We had seen Jeremy come over and return, and so surely could we, fleeing (if need were) for our lives.
But there was no need at present. Miss Orrin had thrown a white shawl about her head and shoulders, and drawn a pair of tight silk lacy "mits" over her bony wrists. She made straight for the drawbridge, walking at least ten yards in front of us—apparently that she might get the first word with the fine young man in clerical attire who stood waiting on the further bank.
"I am sorry to have kept you, sir," she said, in a voice which I could not have believed to be hers, had I not seen her lips moving as we arrived; "I will let down the bridge in a moment. Mr. Stennis has been entertaining some relatives of his own, and did not wish to be disturbed."
"I hope that I am not intruding!" called out the young man from the farther bank. "I can easily look in again. It will not be the least trouble, I assure you!"
"Not for the world," cried the old woman hastily; "in a moment the bridge will be down."