"Ay, it's beasts they are, and not men at all, and it's none of them I be wanting about my kitchen. Let them bring water from the well and leave it at the door, and then be off out of my sight before one of them casts the evil eye on me. And the females are worse than the males; they're like black witches." "Bride!" "Ay, my bairn!" "Ye remember the murder of Father Mohl?" "Am I like to forget it?" "Well, I've been thinking 'twas not like a man to kill a priest like that. Do you think it might have been a black witch that was riding through the forest on a broomstick, and did it with a witch knife,--you know they have them that they copy from real ones." "What's this talk of witches and witch knives?" It was Ralph Ingle who spoke. He stood leaning against the door, his hair falling light against his suit of huntsman's green with leather trimmings, in his hands a string of wild ducks. "Oh, Master Ingle!" cried Cecil, jumping up and down and clapping his hands, "you have been shooting again and when, oh, when will you take me with you as you did promise?" "When Mistress Neville grants her gracious permission; and, Cecil, do you think ever you could gain her consent to another thing?" "What thing?" "To her accepting me as a tenant at Cecil Point." Cecil shook his yellow curls and set his mouth in droll imitation of his mother's determined look. "Cannot be! Mother says we shall never have a tenant at the Point." "Not till the sea gives up its dead," said Elinor, coming to the door and laying her arm about Cecil's shoulder. At Mistress Calvert's approach Ingle bent forward with that unconscious deference which is the most subtle flattery, as though the soul stood at attention before its superior. "Say no more, I pray you," said Elinor, "though I know you do speak but out of kindness and deep thoughtfulness for me. You have been hunting," she added, striving to turn the conversation. "Ay, and have brought the spoils to lay at your feet," adding under his breath, "where my heart still lies." Elinor colored and shook her head, but, feeling that refusal were ungracious, she took the ducks from his hand, stroked the plumage, and bade Cecil carry them to Bride. Ingle watched Cecil disappear with the birds over his arm, then he leaned across the door near Elinor. "You are more beautiful than ever," he said. "I have outgrown the age of flatteries, Master Ingle. Beauty belongs to youth and joy, and both have left me forever." "One type of beauty belongs to these. At St. Gabriel's yonder you were beautiful like a great lady of the court. To-day you are beautiful like the Blessed Virgin." "Hush! You speak something akin to blasphemy." "Nay, not a whit. Did not the old masters paint Our Lady from the women around them, and none so fair as you?" "A pretty model for a sacred figure I should make, with my homespun apron and a bunch of keys in my hand." "They might be the keys of Heaven if the hand were in mine."