This was sufficient evidence, and Mary could only wag her head at it.
She had a reverence for things that were written in books.
"Be yew going to break the mommet?" she asked; and Peter replied that it
was his intention to make yet another clay doll, break it into
fragments, and commit the original doll, which was the only one capable
of working evil, to the fire as before. Thus he would earn the crock of
gold, and obtain vengeance upon Pendoggat also. Pixies were simple folk,
who could easily be hoodwinked by astute human beings; and he ventured
to propose that the mommet should be baked upon Mary's hearthstone in
future, so that Grandfather would see nothing of the operation which had
made him sick.
Mary remained an agnostic. She could understand Grandfather when he
played impish pranks upon them, but when it came to bold brazen speech
she could not believe. Peter had been asleep and imagined it all. They
argued the matter until they nearly quarrelled, and then Mary said she
was going to look about her brother's residence to try and find out
whether any one had been playing a joke upon him. They went outside, and
were relieved to discover that a change had taken place in the weather.
Evidently judgment was not imminent, Betty Middleweek could cease paying
her debts, and the chapel could be closed again. The blue light had
faded, the clouds were higher, and had turned to ghostly grey.
"Aw, Peter, 'tis nought but snow," said Mary cheerfully.
"Snow never made Gran'vaither talk avore," Peter reminded her.
Mary looked about her brother's little hut without seeing anything
unusual. Then she strode around the walls thereof, and her sharp eyes
soon perceived a branch of dry furze lying about a yard away from the
side of the cot. She asked Peter if he had dropped it there, and he
replied that it might have been there for days. "Wind would ha' took it
away," said Mary. "There was wind in the night, but ain't been none
since. That's been broke off from the linny."
At the end of the hut was a small shed, its sides made of old
packing-cases, its roof and door composed of gorse twisted into hurdles.
The back wall of the cot, a contrivance of stones plastered together
with clay, was also the end wall of the linhay. Mary went into the
linhay, which was used by Peter as a place for storing peat. She soon
made a discovery, and called for the lantern. When it was brought she
pulled out a loose stone about the centre of the wall, and holding the
lantern close to the hole saw at once a black board which looked like
panelling, but was the back of the clock-case. Grandfather stood against
that wall; and in the middle of the plank was a hole which had been
bored recently.
"Go'ye into the hut and ask Gran'vaither how he be," called Mary.
Peter toddled off, got before the old clock, and inquired with
solicitude: "How be 'ye, Gran'vaither?"
"Fine, and how be yew?" came the answer.
"Ah," muttered Peter. "That be the way my old Gran'vaither ought to
tell."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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