“Yes, liberty and hate, ha! ha! I would do it again. See, Oswald!” and she took the brittle bone and viciously snapped it across her knee. “Self-control! love! unselfishness! Never! And that child up at the Hall, Oswald, I must send her after you. I have just frightened Sarah down to you. You can have her now, and that child shall come next. Hate is stronger than love. Liberty, self-will and hate must win in the end.” The abandoned old wretch stood up and took her stick--she could not stand quite straight--and hobbled with uncanny swiftness across to a newly made child’s grave and began to scrape with her hands; but at that moment she heard the night-watchman coming along the lane; so she rose and walked back to Newbiggin, where she lived. She opened the door and found the tinder box and struck a light, and then went to a corner where there was an old chest. She unlocked it and peered in and lifted out a bag and shook it. It was full of gold. “Yes,” she said, “money is a good thing, too. How little they know what ‘old Moll o’ the graves’ has got,--old, indeed, Moll is not old! Ah, could not that money tell some strange tales? Love and learning and self-control! Leave all that to the priests. Hate will do for me,--money and liberty are my gods. “Aha, Aline Gillespie, you little fool, what do you mean by crossing my path? I was a pretty little girl once and you are not going to win the love of Upper Teesdale folk for nothing, I’ll warrant you.” CHAPTER II SECRETS “I am so tired of this rain,” said Audry, as she rose and crossed the solar[1] and went to the tall bay window with its many mullions and sat down on the window seat. “It is three days since we have been able to get out and no one has seen the top of Mickle Fell for a week. The gale is enough to deafen one,” she added, “while the moat is like a stormy sea,--and just look at the mad dancers in the rain-rings on the water!” [1] The predecessor of the withdrawing room or drawing room. It was a terrible day, the river was in spate[2] indeed, carrying down great trees and broken fences and even, now and then, some unfortunate beast that had been swept away in the violence of the storm. [2] In torrent. “The High Force must be a wonderful sight though,” she continued, “the two falls must be practically one in all this deluge.” “I do not altogether mind the rain,” said her little friend; “there is something wonderful about it and I always rather like the sound of the wind; it has a nice eerie suggestion, and makes me think of delightful stories of fairies and goblins and strange adventures.” “Well, that may be all right for you, Aline, because you can tell magnificent stories yourself; but I cannot, and it only makes me feel creepy and the rain annoys me because I cannot go out. I wish that we had adventures ourselves, but of course nothing exciting ever happens to us.”