“But have you had no medical advice?” inquired Emmie.
“Years agone I’d the parish doctor, miss; but he didn’t do me no good,” replied the meek little widow. “But now I’m in hopes as I’ll soon get better. There’s a wonderful clever man as has come to this place; they says as he has been in Ireland, and he has scraped the dust off the tombstones of saints, and mixed it up with holy water, and when we’ve crossed his palm with a shilling, miss, he hangs a bag of the dust round our necks, and mutters a charm to wile away all our pains. See, miss,” and the poor creature showed a small linen bag fastened round her neck by a morsel of string, “I gave my last shilling for this.”
“And has it done you good?” asked Emmie, a little amused at the simplicity of the woman, and more than a little indignant at the advantage taken of it by some heartless impostor.
“I can’t say as how I feels much better yet,” replied the sufferer, “but I hopes as in time the charm will work a cure.”
“It will never work anything but disappointment!” cried Miss Trevor; “the food which that shilling might have bought would have done more for your health than all the charms in the world made up by a superstitious, ignorant quack!”
“Ignorant—superstitious!” croaked out a voice at the slowly opening door, which made Emmie start to her feet in alarm. She knew the tones, and she knew the hard features and long grizzled hair of him who had crossed the threshold, and who now stood surveying her with a fixed malignant gaze. “Do you talk of ignorance, child,” continued Harper, making a stride towards Emmie, who instantly backed as far as the narrow space of the room would admit, “you who know not even the secrets of your own dwelling, nor dare to ask what things of darkness may haunt it! Superstition!—if it be superstition to dread the unseen, to tremble before the unknown, is it for you to talk of superstition in another?”
Emmie was too much terrified to attempt a reply. Her one desire was to quit the cottage directly, and she made a movement as if to do so; but Harper was between her and the door, and she did not dare to brush past him. Happily her attendant Susan was much more self-possessed than was her young mistress.
“Please to make way for my lady,” said the maid with a decision of manner which caused Harper to draw a little to one side. Emmie did not even wait to wish the widow good-day; trembling like an aspen, the timid girl made her escape from the cottage, resolved never to run the risk of encountering Harper again, unless she were under the immediate protection of her father or Bruce.
Returning rapidly towards the entrance gate, like one who fears pursuit, Emmie, when almost close to it, came upon Mrs. Jessel, attired as before in black dress, with crape-flowers and bugles.
“Ah! Miss Trevor, good afternoon,” said the late attendant on Mrs. Myers, with the mixture of obsequiousness and forwardness which marked the manner of one long accustomed to flatter and fawn, but who felt herself to be now greatly raised in social position by having a house of her own. “How good you are to go visiting the cottages round!”