“Then ’tis a pure, natural beast wi’ no dark tricks to un, if ’twas theer. A witch hare wouldn’t go in them plaaces. A right hare—sure enough, an’ heavy tu. Thank ’e kindly; an’ if you comes round arter Christmas I’ll cure the skin for ’e, Jan Aggett. ’Twill make a proper cap against the hard weather.” John scraped and offered respectful thanks; then refreshments became the subject of Timothy Chave’s speech. “You haven’t a cup of milk by you, mother? I’m thirsty as a fish.” “Milk—ess fay; but none for you. Ban’t drink for grawed men, if you ax me. But I’ve—well, no call to name it. Yet ’tis a wholesome sort o’ tipple took in reason an’ took hot. You bide here. I’ll be back direckly minute.” She disappeared through a low door at the side of the kitchen and locked it behind her. In five minutes she returned with the promised refreshment and poured it from a square earthenware crock into two large cups. These she half filled with brandy, then added hot water from a kettle, and finally dropped a lump of yellow candy into each, with mingled spices from a shining black box. “’Twill do ’e a power o’ gude an’ keep away evil an’ make heroes of ’e,” declared the woman. Then she watched the drinking men, with pleasure in her bright eyes, and shewed that she appreciated their grunts and gurgles of satisfaction. “Better’n milk?” she said. “A godlike brew!” declared Timothy; and John, who had waited to see his master drink first before venturing upon the witch’s gift, now gave Gammer Gurney the compliments of the blessed season with all respect, then drained the last drop of his refreshment and scraped out the remaining spice and sugar with his fingers. “Sure I feels like a mighty man o’ Scripture compared to what I was a bit ago,” he declared, as the spirit moved him. “You’d make your fortune if you set up a sign in a city and sold that stuff to all buyers,” prophesied Timothy. “I wants no fortune, Maister Chave. I be here, an auld sawl well thought ’pon an’ wi’in call o’ friends. I tell no tales an’ breed no troubles, an’ what goes in my ear doan’t come out at my mouth wi’ a new shape to it, I assure ’e. No tale-bearer me. Tongue an’ ear strangers—that’s the wise way.” “You’m wise enough, ma’am; everybody knaws that.” “Not that I set up for anything above my neighbours, though I may have done ’em a gude service here an’ theer.” “A many of ’em—Lard, He knaws how many,” declared John, eagerly. “Taake my awn case. Didn’t ’e tell me how to win my maid for a silver sixpence, an’ didn’t I do as you bid an’ worrit her marnin’, noon an’ night till she said the word? An’ didn’t Digory Crampiron, the shepherd, come to ’e ’pon the same cause an’ ax what fashion woman ’twas as he’d best pay court to? An’ didn’t you say her’d be a dark maid? An’ sure enough dark her was; an’ a gude wife an’ mother these many days now.”