'An yo'll be wantin to know, like t' rest o' 'em, what he saw!' cried Margaret angrily, facing round upon the boy, whose face was, indeed, one question.' "Margaret, did he tell tha what t' witch said to un?"--every blatherin idiot i' th' parish asked me that, wi his mouth open, till I cud ha stopped my ears an run wheniver I seed a livin creetur. What do I keer?--what doos it matter to me what he saw? I doan't bleeve he saw owt, if yo ast _me_. He wor skeert wi his own thinkins, an th' cowd gripped him i' th' in'ards, an twisted him as yo may twist a withe of hay--Aye! it wor a _cruel_ neet. When I opened t' door i' t' early mornin, t' garden wor aw black--th' ice on t' reservoir wor inches thick. Mony a year afterwards t' foak round here ud talk o' that for an April frost. An my poor 'Lias--lost on that fearfu Scout--sleepin out wi'out a rag to cover him, an skeert soomhow--t'Lord or t'Devil knows how! And then foak ud have me mak a good tale out o' it--soomthin to gie 'em a ticklin down their backbane--soomthin to pass an evenin--_Lord!'_ The wife's voice paused abruptly on this word of imprecation, or appeal, as though her own passion choked her. David stood beside her awkwardly, his eyes fixed on the gravel, wherewith one foot was playing. There was no more sullenness in his expression. Margaret's hand still played restlessly with the handkerchief. Her eyes were far away, her mind absorbed by the story of her own fate. Round the moorside, on which the cottage was built, there bent a circling edge of wood, now aflame with all the colour of late autumn. Against its deep reds and browns, Margaret's small profile was thrown out--the profile already of the old woman, with the meeting nose and chin, the hollow cheek, the maze of wrinkles round the eyes. Into that face, worn by the labour and the grief of the poor--into that bending figure, with the peasant shawl folded round the head and shoulders--there had passed all the tragic dignity which belongs to the simple and heartfelt things of human life, to the pain of helpless affection, to the yearning of irremediable loss. The boy beside her was too young to feel this. But he felt more, perhaps, than any other lad of the moorside could have felt. There was, at all times, a natural responsiveness in him of a strange kind, vibrating rather to pain than joy. He stood by her, embarrassed, yet drawn to her--waiting, too, as it seemed to him, for something more that must be coming. 'An then,' said Margaret at last, turning to him, and speaking more quietly, but still in a kind of tense way, 'then, when 'Lias wor took bad, yo know, Davy, I had my boys. Did yo ever hear tell o' what came to 'em, Davy?' The boy shook his head.