A farmer's wife, whom we asked for a drink of water after dark, lent us an old blanket to cover us in a dry ditch on receiving our promise not to rob the orchard.

An old beggar came limping by us, and wanted to share our covering.

My companion sank right under the blanket to peer at him through one of its holes.

He stood enormous above me in the moonlight, like an apparition touching earth and sky.
'Cold, cold,' he whined: 'there's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off.

Young un!' His words dispersed the fancy that he was something horrible, or else my father in disguise going to throw off his rags, and shine, and say he had found me.