Page:A New England Tale.djvu/138

Rh every one that knows me, knows I never tell a lie for any body."

"Well," said Jane, after a moment's pause, "if I go, how shall I find the way?"

"That's what I am afraid will frighten you most of all; but it must be so. You know where Lucy Willett's grave is, on the side of the hill, above the river; there you will find crazy Bet waiting for you. She is a poor cracked body, but there is nobody I would sooner trust in any trouble; besides, she is in the secret already, and there is no help for it."

"But," said Jane, "may I not get some one else to go with me?"

"Not for the wide world. Nothing will harm you."

Jane was about to make some further protestation, when a sound from the house alarmed the man, and he disappeared as suddenly as he had made his entree.

John was an old man, who had been well known to two or three successive generations in the village. He had never had health or strength for hard labour, but had gained a subsistence by making baskets, weaving new seats into old chairs, collecting herbs for spring beer, and digging medicinal roots from the mountains: miscellaneous offices, which are usually performed by one person, where the great principle of a division of labour is yet unknown and unnecessary. A disciple of Gall might, perhaps, have detected in the conformation of the old man's head, certain indications