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He bestowed the alms craved of him in turn, he did not repulse the beldame's blessing; and Kitty, who was already moved by his kindness to that poor mourner at the door, forgot that the earlier part of their walk had been so miserable, and climbed back to the Upper Town through the Prescott Gate in greater gayety than she had yet known that day in his company.
As he neared the town-gate, an old beldame begged an alms of him, and though Hind, not liking her ill-favoured visage, would have spurred forward, the beldame's glittering eye held his horse motionless. 'Good woman, cried Hind, flinging her a crown, 'I am in haste; pray let me pass. 'Sir, answered the witch, 'three days I have awaited your coming.
To be alone amongst his acres, quite alone to have no one to care whether he did anything at all, no one to whom he might confide that Beldame's hock was to be fired, that Peacock was asking for more gates, was almost more than he could bear. He would have wired to the girls to come home, but he could not bring himself to face their questions. Gerald was at Gib!
Matty, being taken by surprise, was some time before she could shake off the old beldame's hateful caresses; but at last getting free and tucking up her hair, which her imaginary mother-in-law had clawed about her ears, she exclaimed in no very gentle tones "Arrah, good woman, who axed for your company who are you at all?"
Cuffey recommended me to her Protection, took upon him the Command of the Men, and return'd, after asking this Beldame's Blessing, which she gave him with Assurance of repelling the Whites. The Fire all this while was very brisk, and the old Woman said to me, that she saw those in Ambush run away from the Whites, tho' she lay with her Face on the Ground.
He, unlucky man, had expected something little short of a virago's talons, and a beldame's curse; he had experienced on less occasions something of the sort before; but now that real affliction stood upon the hearth, Mary Acton's character rose with the emergency, and she greeted her ruined husband with a kindness towards him, a solemn indignation against those who grind the poor, and a sober courage to confront evil, which he little had imagined.
Barter, Peacock, the roses, and Beldame's hock. Only once they came too near to that which instinct told them to avoid, for the Squire said suddenly: "I suppose you saw that woman?" And Mrs. Pendyce murmured: "Yes." She soon went to her room, and had barely got into bed when he appeared, saying as though ashamed: "I'm very early."
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