Supper over, Louie went out to sit on the steps, and Hannah
contemptuously forbore to make her come in and help clear away. Out
in the air, the child slowly quieted down. It was a clear, frosty
April night, promising a full moon. The fresh, nipping air blew on
the girl's heated temples and swollen eyes. Against her will
almost, her spirits came back. She swept Aunt Hannah out of her
mind, and began to plan something which consoled her. When would
they have their stupid prayers and let her get upstairs?

David meanwhile hung about the kitchen. He would have liked to ask
Uncle Reuben about the pool and 'Lias's story, but Hannah was
bustling about, and he never mentioned 'Lias in her hearing. To do
so would have been like handing over something weak, for which he
had a tenderness, to be worried.

But he rummaged out an old paper-covered guide to the Peak, which
he remembered to have been left at the farm one summer's day by a
passing tourist, who paid Hannah handsomely for some bread and
cheese. Turning to the part which concerned Clough End, Hayfield,
and the Scout, he found:--

'In speaking of the Mermaiden's Pool, it may be remarked that the
natives of several little hamlets surrounding Kinder Scout have
long had a tradition that there is a beautiful woman--an English
Hamadryad--lives in the side of the Scout; that she comes to bathe
every day in the Mermaid's Well, and that the man who has the good
luck to behold her bathing will become immortal and never die.'

David shut the book and fell pondering, like many another wiser