I see un but in that theer ghashly ‘Oller.  I see a light, fust of all, a-leapin’ an’ a-dancin’ about ‘mong the trees—­ah! an’ I ’eerd shouts as was enough to curdle a man’s good blood.’  ‘Pooh! what’s lights?’ says Joel Amos, cockin’ ’is eye into ’is empty tankard; ’that bean’t much to frighten a man, no, nor shouts neither.’  ’Aren’t it?’ says John Pringle, fierce-like; ’what if I tell ye the place be full o’ flamin’ fire—­what if I tell ye I see the devil ‘isself, all smoke, an’ sparks, an’ brimston’ a-floatin’ an’ a-flyin’, an’ draggin’ a body through the tops o’ the trees?’ ‘Lord!’ says everybody, an’ well they might, Peter, an’ nobody says nothin’ for a while.  ‘I wonder,’ says Joel Amos at last, ’I wonder who ‘e was a-draggin’ through the tops o’ the trees—­an’ why?’ ‘That’ll be poor Peter bein’ took away,’ says I, ’I’ll go an’ find the poor lad’s corp’ in the mornin’—­an’ ’ere I be.”

“And you find me not dead, after all your trouble,” said I.

“If,” said the Ancient, sighing, “if your arms was broke, or your legs was broke, now—­or if your ’air was singed, or your face all burned an’ blackened wi’ sulphur, I could ha’ took it kinder; but to find ye a-sittin’ eatin’ an’ drinkin’—­it aren’t what I expected of ye, Peter, no.”  Shaking his head moodily, he took from his hat his neverfailing snuff-box, but, having extracted a pinch, paused suddenly in the act of inhaling it, to stare at me very hard.  “But,” said he, in a more hopeful tone, “but your face be all bruised an’ swole up, to be sure, Peter.”

“Is it, Ancient?”

“Ah! that it be—­that it be,” he cried, his eyes brightening, “an’ your thumb all bandaged tu.”

“Why, so it is, Ancient.”

“An’—­Peter—!” The pinch of snuff fell, and made a little brown cloud on the snow of his smock-frock as he rose, trembling, and leaned towards me, across the table.

“Well, Ancient?”

“Your throat—!”

“Yes—­what of it?”

“It—­be all marked—­scratched it be—­tore, as if—­as if—­claws ’ad been at it, Peter, long—­sharp claws!”

“Is it, Ancient?”

“Peter—­oh, Peter!” said he, with a sudden quaver in his voice, “who was it—­what was it, Peter?” and he laid a beseeching hand upon mine.  “Peter!” His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the hand plucked tremulously at my sleeve, while in the wrinkled old face was, a, look of pitiful entreaty.  “Oh, Peter! oh, lad! ’twere Old Nick as done it—­’twere the devil as done it, weren’t it—? oh! say ’twere the devil, Peter.”  And, seeing that hoary head all a-twitch with eagerness as he waited my answer, how could I do other than nod?

“Yes, it was the devil, Ancient.”  The old man subsided into his chair; embracing himself exultantly.

“I knowed it!  I knowed it!” he quavered. “’Twere the devil flyin’ off wi’ Peter,’ says I, an’ they fules laughed at me, Peter, ay, laughed at me they did, but they won’t laugh at the old man no more—­not they; old I be, but they won’t laugh at me no more, not when they see your face an’ I tell ’em.”  Here he paused to fumble for his snuff-box, and, opening it, held it towards me.