"'And did ye say she killed a boy?' says she.

"'Not I, ma'am,' says I.

"Judith was always up with me, after that, when the two elder women was
away from her. I would a jumped out at winda, rather than stay alone
in the same room wi' her.

"It was about a week after, as well as I can remember, Mrs. Wyvern,
one day when me and her was alone, told me a thing about Madam Crowl
that I did not know before.

"She being young and a great beauty, full seventy year before, had
married Squire Crowl, of Applewale. But he was a widower, and had a
son about nine years old.

"There never was tale or tidings of this boy after one mornin'. No one
could say where he went to. He was allowed too much liberty, and used
to be off in the morning, one day, to the keeper's cottage and
breakfast wi' him, and away to the warren, and not home, mayhap, till
evening; and another time down to the lake, and bathe there, and spend
the day fishin' there, or paddlin' about in the boat. Well, no one
could say what was gone wi' him; only this, that his hat was found by
the lake, under a haathorn that grows thar to this day, and 'twas
thought he was drowned bathin'. And the squire's son, by his second
marriage, with this Madam Crowl that lived sa dreadful lang, came in
far the estates. It was his son, the ald lady's grandson, Squire
Chevenix Crowl, that owned the estates at the time I came to
Applewale.