But when the cistern door is opened, he hears a lot of clacking tongues all of a sudden like they was a hen convention on.

He allows she has told some of the neighbours, and he'll scare them too.

So Hank, he laid low.

And the woman as looks in sees nothing, for it's as dark down there as the insides of the whale what swallered Noah.

But she leaves the door open and goes on a-making tea, and they ain't skeercly a sound from that cistern, only little, ripply noises like it might have been fish.
Pretty soon a woman says: "It has drawed, Elmira; won't you have a cup ?" Elmira she kicked some more, but she took hern.