"Aie--aie!" quoth the old woman suddenly. "Bennigo, you have but three to Jochabed's eight, so Jochabed taketh her--unless the nice, kind, young gorgio will give more--the fine young gorgio as my wisdom telleth me is other than he do seem--aha! What of it, young master--aie--aie?" "Young man," whispered the girl, grasping my arm in strong, compelling fingers and staring at me with eyes big and desperate, "young man, if you would not see bloody work--turn out your pockets!" Moved by her wild looks, I obeyed almost involuntarily, but hardly was my purse out of my pocket than she snatched and tossed it to the old woman. "Count, grannam, count!" she cried imperiously, "and if't is not enough I've my little _churi_ for the first as dare touch me!" The old woman opened my purse, told over its contents very deliberately, nodded and, thrusting it into her bosom, spoke with the fierce-eyed men in her strange dialect, tapped each with her staff and motioned them to be gone; hereupon, and to my unutterable wonder, they obeyed her and slunk off without a word. "Fourteen guineas!" said she. "Fourteen guineas be more than eight--fourteen guineas, a florin, one groat and three pennies! Aha, 't is more than she be worth, I think, by reason of her shrewish tongue and unkindly ways, and if only a _hindity mengro_ and no true _Camlo_ yet she be's a _rinkinni fakement_ to look at, but then a bargain is a bargain--an' I wishes ye j'y o' her, my young rye!" Which said, she reached out her staff and touched first me and then the girl lightly on head and breast, muttering a farrago of strange words while her bright glance flashed from one to other of us; then she turned and, bowed upon her staff, climbed the ferny steep nimble and sure-footed despite her years and left us staring after her, the girl frowning and sullen as ever, I full of chagrined surprise and a growing uneasiness. CHAPTER XIII WHICH TELLS SOMEWHAT OF MY DEPLORABLE SITUATION And after we had stood thus some while my companion spoke, though without troubling to turn her head or so much as glance towards me: "Young man, what now?" "Why, now," I answered, taking off my hat and bowing, "I have the honour to bid you good-bye!" At this she wheeled quickly and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt myself quite out of countenance. "Why d'ye blush, young man?" "Because you don't!" "And why should I blush?" "It would be more maidenly--?" "Maidenly?" she repeated, and broke into such a mockery of laughter that I felt my cheeks indeed burn with a painful effusion and turning abruptly, I walked away in high dudgeon.