"'Tis very odd," observed Pumpkin, "but this dog that's lying at my feet never could a' bear going past her cottage late o' nights—hang me if he could; and the night she died—Lord! you should have heard the howl Hector gave—and a' didn't then know she were gone—it's as true as the gospel—it is—actually!"
"No! but were't really so?" inquired Dickons—several of the others taking their pipes out of their mouths, and looking earnestly at Pumpkin.
"I didn't half like it, I can tell you," quoth Pumpkin.
"Ha, ha, ha!—ha, ha!" laughed the gamekeeper—
"Ay, marry, you may laugh," quoth Pumpkin, "but I'll stake half-a-gallon o' ale you daren't go by yourself to the cottage where she's lying—now, mind—i' the dark."
"I'll do it," quoth Higgs, eagerly, preparing to lay down his pipe.
"No, no—thou'rt quite used to dead folk—'tis quite in thy line!" replied Pumpkin—and, after a little faint drollery, silence ensued for some moments.
"Bess dropped off sudden like, at the last, didn't she?" inquired the landlord.
"She went out, as, they say, like the snuff of a candle," replied Jobbins, one of the farmers; "no one were with her but my Missis at the time. The night afore, she had took to the rattles all of a sudden. My Sall (that's done for her, this long time, by Madam's orders,) says old Bess were a good deal shaken by a chap from London, which cam' down about a week afore Christmas."
"Ay, ay," quoth one, "I've heard o' that—what was it?—what passed atwixt them?"