Here Hamnet nudges Will. What is this he is saying? About Gammer, his very own grandame? "Ben't no witches," mutters Hamnet to Will. "Schoolmaster says so. Says the like of Gammer's talk is naught but women's tales." Whereupon Gammer pauses and turns her puckered eyes down upon the two urchins at her knee. Has she heard what her grandson said? Will Shakespeare feels as guilty as if he had been the one to say it. "Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie," says Gammer, and she wags her sharp chin knowingly; "brave words. An' you shall take the bowl yonder and fetch a round o' pippins from the cellar for us here. Candle? La, you know the way full well. The dusk is hardly fell. Nay, you're not plucking Judith's sleeve, Hammie? You are not a lad to want a sister at elbow? Go, now! What say you, Mistress Snelling? The tale? An' Willy Shakespeare here, all eyes and open mouth for it, too? Ay, but he's the rascalliest sweet younker for the tale. An' where were we? Ay, the fat woman of Brentford had just come to Goodman Gosling's house---- [Illustration: "'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"] "Come back an' shut the door behind you, Hammie; there's more than a nip to these December gales. I' faith, how the lad drumbles, a clumsy lob---- "As you say, the fat woman of Brentford, one Gossip Pratt by name, an' a two yards round by common say she was, an' that beard showing on her chin under her thrummed hat an' muffler, a man with score o' years to beard need not be ashamed of--this same woman comes to Goodman Gosling's, him as dwelt by the churchyard. But he, avised about her dealings, sent her speedily away, most like not choosing his words, him being of a jandered, queazy stomach, an' something given to tongue. For an hour following her going, an' you'll believe me--an' I had it from his wife's cousin a-come ten year this simple time when I visited my sister's daughter Nan at Brentford--his hogs fell sick an' died to the number o' twenty an' he helpless afore their bloating and swelling. "Nor did it end there, for his children falling ill soon after--a pretty dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a stranger, an' a finger in mouth--they falling sick, the woman of Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An' layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast, dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell a-sudden in a swoon. "An' Goodwife Gosling seizing it, an' mindful of her being a witch-woman, calling on the name of God, straightway there fell out of the child's blanket a great toad which exploded in the fire like any gunpowder, an' the room that full o' smoke an' brimstone as none could--Save us! What's that!" cried Gammer. [Illustration: "'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"]