"The shepherds telled me this morn that th’ Ratcliffes is all a-buzz, an’ folk are shaking their heads all up an’ dahn th’ moorsides. Besides, th’ owd house here fair rustles, like, as I’ve known it do afore when trouble war i’ store. I tell thee, I can hear th’ boggarts creeping wick as scropels fro’ roof to cellar." "Hod thy whisht—do, now, for goodness sake. Tha flairs me," cried Martha, glancing behind her. And then she clutched the farm-man by the arm with sudden terror. "Look yonder, Hiram! Look yonder!" she cried. Hiram looked and started to his feet. "Begow, I thowt ’twar a right boggart this time," he muttered. "What ails th’ little body to move so quiet about a house?" Mistress Wayne, dressed all in white, with celandines at her breast and fair hair rippling to her waist, had come in from the garden and stood at the open kitchen-door; and she was smiling, carelessly and trustfully, on the frightened maids and on old Hiram. "’Tis my wedding-morn," she said, "and I’ve been to talk with the fairies, Martha. They say ’tis well to get the wee folks’ blessing for the bairns to come." Hiram gave her a long glance, then looked away; and an unwonted pity stirred him. "Nay, I’ve no sorrow to waste. She’s made herself a nettle-bed, an’ she mun lig on’t," he muttered. "Come in, Mistress, come in, an’ warm yourseln a bit; ye’re looking cold and wan, like," cried Martha, recovering from her fright. "Oh, no, that is not true. I peeped at myself in the well out there just now, and I thought that I had never seen a happier face. Hiram, thou must come to my wedding, too; wilt thou?" "Ay, Mistress—ay, I’ll come, choose what." She smiled again, and waved her hand, and slipped away into the sunshine that shimmered over the wet flagstones of the yard. And neither Martha nor the farm-men found aught to say to one another for awhile. "What dost mak of it?" said Hiram Hey at last. "Nay, I can mak nowt of it. But ’tis a drear start for a burial. Hiram, lad, Marsh is no healthy place just now, an’ I for one could wish to be weel out on’t. It isn’t th’ blood-shed I fear, an’ it isn’t th’ dead man yonder—but it’s th’ ghosts! Tha’rt right when tha says they fair creep fro’ floor to garret." A thought crossed Hiram’s mind—no new thought, either, but one that showed livelier than its wont now Martha was in such trouble. "Tha’d be fain to change dwellings, like?" he ventured, putting a hand on her shoulder and half drawing her toward him. Martha yielded to his touch, and a puzzled look came over Hiram’s face; he had pondered over this last step for four-and-twenty months, and needed a twelvemonth longer in which to make sure of its wisdom. His doubts were settled, however, by the intrusion of the Sexton’s wife, who stopped on seeing what was afoot and glanced from Hiram to the empty mug.