’My poor girl, I will not tell.’ ’Say what I sez: "Blast me blue, and glory rallaluley!"’ ’There is no necessity for that. You may trust my word.’ ’He’d a right to do it,’ argued Joyce. ’I be his daughter, and a vaither may do what he minds to wi’ his child. That’s reason.’ ’I dispute that. He had no right whatever to maltreat you. But, tell me, have you had no doctor to you? Your bones must be set.’ ’A doctor won’t do me no good, maister. I niver seed a animal as had been mashed that hev come right again. ’Tain’t in nature. I be going to die right on end, I be. But I don’t wish vaither no hurt for it. I be his daughter, and he has a right to do as he pleases.’ ’Joyce, when was this done?’ ’When were this done? Why, that night the carriage were overset and the man killed.’ ’What! all that time ago, and nothing done to your arms! Did not your father put splints on them?’ ’What be they? Vaither can’t mend nothing. He’ve abroked and tore down scores and scores of things, but he’ve amended nothing.’ ’And no one has been here to help you?’ ’Nobody niver comes here. My vaither be a sight better now than he were. I’ll tell’y how that comed about. I’ll tell’y the whole tale right on end. When I returned home after I’d a’ been to West Wyke wi’ you, carrying the lady wi’ the white face, him were a’ lying in wait for I, and when I comed up, then he set on me wi’ a great stone, and he hurted me all over, and broke what he could break. You see I’d a angered ’n, and he forgot himself. I’ve a forgot myself a times too. After that I crept in here, and laid me down, by the turve fire. But vaither, he wouldn’t come in, he stood and peeped in at the door. I seed ’n and I sed, "Vaither! Miss Cicely sez you may go and sleep in the calves’ linny among the straw, and it will be warm and comfortable for’y, vaither, better nor the old barril was. So you go along, and let me bide quiet and die in peace." Then he went. In the night I were that burning hot I could not sleep, and I opened my eyes, and there I seed old mother wot be buried under the hearthstone; her were a heaving up in the midst of the fire. I seed her head sticking straight out of the burning turves, and her looked hard at me; her face were red as live coals. Then her went on heaving and pushing till her’d a worked herself right out of the earth, in the midst of the fire, and the burning turves tumbled this way and that as her comed out. Then I seed that her old gown were flickering wi’ blue light, just as you’ve seed old touchwood. Her comed to me and her kissed me, but sure her lips were like fire, and they burned me. Then her sed, "Joyce, tell your vaither that I be acoming after ’n if he does you any more harm. I knows where he be, in the linny, lying warm in the straw. But I’ll make ’ll warmer. I’ll throw fiery turves in among the straw, and he’ll burn, he’ll burn, he’ll burn!" As her were a saying of that her went backerds into the fire,