“Such things never happen nowadays” they said to themselves with a sigh. And the news did not stop down below in the plain, but mounted with the winds and the clouds, and reached lone places in the fells, where it raised a wilder excitement still--at least in one melancholy and solitary place. CHAPTER XI. AN AFTERNOON’S WORK. “You must not cry, Nello; for one thing you are too big to cry; or if you are not too big you are too old. You are eight--past! and then the old gentleman downstairs is such a funny, funny old man, that he will eat us, Nello, if we make a noise.” “I don’t believe you,” said the little boy, whom England had much improved in strength. “Old men do not eat children,” but he drew back a little, and stopped crying all the same. “We do not know no-ting about old men in England,” said Lilias--the _th_ was still a difficulty to her; and they both pronounced their _rs_ in a way which was unfamiliar to English ears, though the letter exists and retains its natural sound in the north country. “They are very very strange; they sit in a chair all day, like the wild beasts. I go to the door and peep in. He has no cap on his head like Don Pepé, but a bare place here, where the cap should be, and white hair. And he never moves nor speaks. Sometimes I think he will be cut out of wood; and then all at once he rises up,--and me, I run away.” “Are you not afraid, Lilias? I should be frightened,” said the little boy, looking at her with large wondering eyes. “That is because you are only eight, but I am twelve, and one is never frightened after twelve. I run away, and it makes me beat and thump here,” Lilias put her hand to her heart to indicate the place, “and I like it.” “Yes,” said the little brother, “when you run it makes that beat; but I do not like it.”