"How am I to know? I don't spy after her. Others may," he gave a sly, covert look at Elijah; "I don't. But I reckon she was out on the saltings watching for the sheep-stealers."
"Have you had sheep-stealers on the Ray?"
"Aye, we have."
"Did you watch for them at night?"
"I!" with a grunt. "They were not my sheep. No, thank you. Let them that wallys the sheep watch 'em. I do what I'm paid to do, and I don't do more."
Mehalah did not listen to the whole of this conversation. She had satisfied herself that Abraham was there, and had heard how Rebow and his men came to be on the spot when the fire broke out; she then closed the door again, and returned to the window. She did not leave her station till dawn, except to attend to the fire, to make it up from the heap stacked by the side of the chimneypiece. When day began to break, she seated herself on a stool by the bed, and laying her head on the mattress. fell asleep, and slept for an hour or two, uneasily, troubled by dreams and the discomfort of her position.
When she awoke the house was quiet. She went downstairs, with reluctance, and found no one stirring, but the fire made up and a kettle boiling over it, the table spread with everything she could desire for breakfast. Elijah, Abraham, and the other men were gone. There was a canister with tea on the board. Mehalah made her mother some, and took it up to her.
The old woman was awake, and drank the tea with eagerness.
"I don't think I can get out of bed to-day, Mehalah!" she said. "I feel my limbs all of an ache; the cold has got into the marrow of my bones, and I feel as if the frost were splitting them, as at times it will split pipes. I must lie abed till the thaw comes to them."
"Can you eat anything?"
"I think I can."
"Mother, how long are we going to remain here?"
"It is wery comfortable, I am sure."
"But we cannot stay in this house."
"Where else can we go?"
