"Who should she be but one of the pixies?" replied a tall, stout, well-built young man, who had been listening with breathless attention to the story.
"Hould thy tongue, 'Siah Trenow," said an elderly man, rising from his seat in the chimney-corner, and taking a long pull at the jug of hot beer and sugar which the landlord had placed on the table;—"thee'st nevar knaw nothen. I'll tell 'ee, na, tes like as this here. How could a pixie handle a showl for to showley in the stuff again, I should like to knaw; and where could a pixie get a showl from?"
"What wor aw like, so fur as you could see, Maister Freeman?" continued he, turning round to where that gentleman had been sitting a minute ago,—when, to his astonishment, he saw that the seat was vacant.
"Why he's gone like the snoff of a candle, soas!"
"That's zackly like he, na," said the landlord; "he'll tell a story till he do bring 'ee up to a point, and then lev 'ee to gees the rest; esn't et so, Peggy?"
"I'll tell 'ee, soas," said the young man who had been addressed as ''Siah Trenow,' but whose proper Christian name was 'Josiah,' "he do knaw bra' things. Why, he ha' got a gashly g'eat room up there that nobody can go in but he, where he do count the stars, so they do say."
"Iss fie," said the landlord, whose name was Brown; "many people can tell about the conjuring and things, up there."
"Hush, Brown," exclaimed his wife; "you do knaw that when we lost so many pigs you wor glad enough for to go to Maister Freeman for to knaw something about them; and he tould 'ee, so you said, and you b'lieved every word he tould 'ee,—so don't you bark nor growl. His dafter, Miss Reeney, tould me last week that she shud think that Old Nick wor up there sometimes weth her fe-a-thar, they do keep such a caparous,—and I've got my thofts, too, soas!"
"Come! come! Mrs. Brown," exclaimed 'Siah Trenow, rising up in an excited manner; "don't you bring Miss Reeney's name in weth her fe-a-thar's doings, or else I'll——"