'It was a little too realistic for me,' observed Josey. 'For what do you think he did one night, Chris, my dear? He was living in this house at the time, and we all went to bed quite comfortably, after a heavy supper. Turk had had a great triumph that night, and the audience were so delighted with the way in which he strangled his victims, that they called him before the curtain more than once. We talked of it a great deal after supper. Well, in the middle of the night I woke up with a curious sensation upon me. Something seemed to be crawling towards me very stealthily. I listened in a terrible fright, and sure enough I heard something crawling in the room. I lit a candle quickly, you may be sure; and there I saw Turk in his nightshirt, as I'm a living woman, creeping about on the floor, as he was in the habit every night of creeping about on the stage in the character of The Thug. He was fast asleep, my dear. "Turk! Turk!" I cried, and I was about to jump out of bed and give him a good shaking, when he shouted, "Ha! ha! I have you! Die! die!" and he ran up to me. My dear, if I hadn't jumped out on the other side of the bed, and poured a jug of cold water down his back, I believe he would have strangled me. It woke him up, and a nice state he was in. Every night after that, until the run of the piece was over, and he was playing other characters, I locked him in his bedroom, and took away the key. I wasn't going to have the children strangled in their sleep, and Turk hanged for it. I used to go to the door of his room in the dead of night, and more than once I heard him crawling about on the floor, strangling imaginary people, with his "Ha! ha! Die! die!" He never knew anything of it, my dear, and used to come down to breakfast looking as innocent as a lamb.'
Turk seemed to take pride in this narration.
'It shows that I was in earnest,' he said. 'There's ten o'clock striking.'
We listened in silence, and did not speak until the last echo had quite died away. Then I raised my head and saw that Josey was looking at me very earnestly.
'Chris, my dear,' she said, somewhat nervously, 'you have good cause to remember the first night you came into this house.'
'Indeed I have, Josey,' I replied.
'I'm going to give you better cause to remember to-night. I'm a little witch, you know.' She hobbled about the kitchen, and, after going through some absurd pantomime, came and stood close behind me. I should have been inclined to laugh, but that Turk's serious face made me serious. 'Now, then,' she continued, placing her arms round my neck, and her hands upon my eyes, 'ever since I played that witch, I've had the idea that I could do magic things if I tried. I'm going to try now; shut your eyes, and wish.' She placed her lips close to my ear, and I thought she was about to whisper something, but she kissed me instead. I humoured her, and did not make an effort to free myself from her embrace. We must have remained in this position for fully two minutes, during which time I heard the door open and shut. When Josey removed her hands, I saw my mother sitting on one side, and uncle Bryan on the other. I held out my hand gladly to him; Josey clapped hers in delight.
'It was a whim of this good little woman's,' said uncle Bryan, looking at Josey affectionately. 'And we were compelled to let her have her way. We owe her too much to refuse her anything.'
'But you don't look as surprised as I thought you would, Master Chris,' exclaimed Josey, in a tone of assumed disappointment.
'Well, the truth is, Josey,' I said, 'I saw uncle Bryan yesterday; so it is not so much of a surprise as you thought it would be.'