'Lias, piqued and wrathful, and 'wi moor yell on board nor he could reetly stan,' took the bet.

Margaret heard nothing of it.

He announced on Easter Eve that he was going to a brother in Edale for the Sunday, and gave her the slip.

She saw no more of him till the carrier brought home to her, on the Sunday morning, a starved and pallid object--'gone clean silly, an hutched thegither like an owd man o' seventy--he bein fifty-six by his reet years.' With woe and terror she helped him to his bed, and in that bed he stayed for more than a year, while everything went from them--school and savings, and all the joys of life.
'An yo'll be wantin to know, like t' rest o' 'em, what he saw!' cried Margaret angrily, facing round upon the boy, whose face was, indeed, one question.' "Margaret, did he tell tha what t' witch said to un ?"--every blatherin idiot i' th' parish asked me that, wi his mouth open, till I cud ha stopped my ears an run wheniver I seed a livin creetur.

What do I keer ?--what doos it matter to me what he saw?
I doan't bleeve he saw owt, if yo ast _me_.