But she said: Nay, ye have been in ill
company, I will wear you not, though ye be goodly, at least not till
ye have been fumigated and hallowed for me.
Therewith she turned back to the settle and did on her her old smock
and her ragged grey coat, and said: To-day at least will these be
good enough for to-day's work. And she knit her brow withal, and
walked with a firm step out-a-doors and stood a while gazing on the
dead corpse of her enemy; and she thought how that here was that
which once was so great a thing unto her for the shaping of her life-
days, and which so oft came to her waking thoughts after she had
escaped from her hands, (though, as aforesaid, she seldom dreamed of
her a-night-time), and moreover an hour ago she yet feared it so sore
that she scarce might stand for the fear of it; and now it was nought
but a carven log unto her.
But she told herself that the work was to be done; so she dragged the
body away thence, and across the brook, and a little way into the
meadow, and then she went back and fetched mattock and spade from the
outhouse, where she knew they lay, and so fell to digging a grave for
the corpse of her dead terror.
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