"The bed is the best place for her at present," said Ned M'Grane, as he passed out after Larry, "but don't let her stay too long in it, Kitty."
And Kitty's nod, in answer to the wink which accompanied this remark, was sufficient to prove that she fully understood.
III.
When they reached the forge it was just nightfall, but Ned lighted a lamp or lantern which hung on the wall, bolted the door, closed the window shutters, and then proceeded to light the fire. Larry watched him with the greatest interest, while he himself moaned and groaned and stamped about with the fierce pain of the big, shaking tooth.
It was one of the front teeth and very prominent. A tooth on each side of it had long since departed, and so it stood out in bold relief, grim and determined-looking. The pain was so constant and so annoying now that Larry would have suffered any torture to get rid of it.
"How do you work the charm, Ned?" he asked at length, when there was no likelihood of the mystic rite being put into practice.
"Oh that's a secret that can't be given away to any man or mortal," said Ned, as he divested himself of his coat and proceeded, slowly and carefully, to roll up his shirt sleeves. "'Twould be a big risk for me to let anyone know that; I might be on the look-out for some terrible punishment. In fact, I hardly know myself how it works. It takes place by some power beyond my knowledge entirely, Larry. I'm only like the means of settin' it in motion, an' then it does all the rest itself in a strange an' mysterious manner.
"Now, I want you, Larry, before I start at all, to give me your solemn word that you'll wait, real patient, until the charm is ready to work, an' that you'll make no complaint either before or after the charm takes place. Some people get impatient an' make some complaint or other, an' then, instead of the charm workin', the pain o' the toothache gets worse than ever, an' sometimes they die that very night. Do you promise, Larry?"
"I promise, Ned, that no matter how severe or how long the workin' o' the charm is I'll not make the least complaint, because I'd suffer anythin' to ease the pain o' this infernal tooth. Sure it'll never annoy me again, Ned?"
"Never," said Ned M'Grane, decisively, as he took from a small box a long, thin strand of flaxen thread, and pulled and jerked it in every conceivable fashion to test its strength. Then he stretched it three times along the anvil, and three times along the sledge hammer, and three times along a bar of iron, uttering all the time in a weird, solemn tone, strange, inarticulate sounds, which silenced Larry's groans and made him feel awed and frightened.