'Davy, what's your opinion o' that?' or, 'Davy, my lad, did yo iver hear sich clit-clat i' your life?' or again, 'Davy, yo'll not be misled, surely, by sich a piece o' speshul-pleadin as that?' So the appeals would run, and the boy, at first bewildered, and even irritated by them, as by something which threw hindrances in the way of the only dramatic entertainment the High Peak was likely to afford him, had learnt at last to join in them with relish. Many meetings with 'Lias on the moorside, which the old seer made alive for both of them--the plundering of 'Lias's books, whence he had drawn the brown 'Josephus' in his pocket--these had done more than anything else to stock the boy's head with its present strange jumble of knowledge and ideas. _Knowledge_, indeed, it scarcely was, but rather the materials for a certain kind of excitement. 'Wal, Davy, did yo hear that?' said 'Lias, presently, looking round on the boy with a doubtful countenance, after Cromwell had given an unctuous and highly Biblical account of the slaughter at Drogheda and its reasons. 'How mony did he say he killed at that place?' asked the boy sharply. 'Thoosands,' said Dawson, solemnly. 'Theer was naw mercy asked nor gi'en. And those wha escaped knockin on t' yead were aw sold as slaves--every mon jock o' them!' A strong light of anger showed itself in David's face. 'Then he wor a cantin murderer! Yo mun tell him so! If I'd my way, he'd hang for 't!' 'Eh, laddie, they were nowt but rebels an Papists,' said the old man, complacently. 'Don't yo becall Papists!' cried David, fiercely, facing round upon him. 'My mither wor a Papist.' A curious change of expression appeared on 'Lias's face. He put his hand behind his ear that he might hear better, turned a pair of cunning eyes on David, while his lips pressed themselves together. 'Your mither wor a Papist? an your feyther wor Sandy Grieve. Ay, ay--I've yeerd tell strange things o' Sandy Grieve's wife,' he said slowly. Suddenly Louie, who had been lying full length on her back in the sun, with her hat over her face, apparently asleep, sat bolt upright. 'Tell us what about her,' she said imperiously. 'Noa--noa,' said the old man, shaking his head, while a sort of film seemed to gather over the eyes, and the face and features relaxed--fell, as it were, into their natural expression of weak senility, which so long as he was under the stress of his favourite illusions was hardly apparent. 'But it's true--it's varra true--I've yeerd tell strange things about Sandy Grieve's wife.' And still aimlessly shaking his head, he sat staring at the opposite side of the ravine, the lower jaw dropping a little. 'He knows nowt about it,' said David, roughly, the light of a sombre, half-reluctant curiosity, which had arisen in his look, dying down.