Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/131

Rh was about seventy years of age, and almost childish, and he obeyed mechanically his wife's instructions to salute the visitors.

When the party had ridden off, before the eyes of the old couple, and the last of the troopers' horses had crossed the bridge over the stream at the bottom of the hill, Ann looked across, with a laugh, to the woman at the spinning-wheel.

"'Twas lucky they were but men, Jack," said she, "or they'd have found out long since that, while thy wheel went round, there was nothing spun!"

And the woman at the spinning-wheel rose to a full height of some six feet, took off the cap and the gray woman's wig, and disclosed to view the sallow, thin face and mouse-colored hair of "Long Jack," the smuggler.