And then Cora came by the house and three hundred a year.
You'd think, in your worldly wisdom, that such a woman as her might have been rather doubtful as a wife, and was like to trade on her fatal cleverness when up against the changes and chances of married life; but no such thing was ever reported against Cora Caunter. She loved Nick and ran straight in double harness, and brought the man four very fine childer. And the eldest girl wears the amber heart to chapel on Sundays; because, as Cora told Nicholas, 'tis no use having a heirloom if you don't let the people see it.
As for James White, one dose of romantics was enough for him and he never went courting no more; but Mary Jane found a very good husband and left Hartland along with him after marriage. She quarrelled with James about the wedding-breakfast because she wanted for him to pay, but he would not.
No. XI
THE WISE WOMAN OF WALNA
I
When farmer Badge died, his widow kept on at Walna, and some people thought the world of her, same as I always did, but some was a bit frightened, because of her great gifts. Charity Badge certainly did know a terrible lot more than every-day folk, which was natural in the daughter of a white witch; but she weren't no witch herself—neither black nor white—and, as she often said to me: "'Tis only my way of putting two and two together that makes the difference between me and the other women round about these parts."
Walna was a poor little bit of a place up the Wallabrook Valley, and when Charity died it all went to pieces, for there was none to take it again. Tramps slept there till the roof fell in, and then the hawks and owls took it over; but fifty years agone she flourished and did pretty well there, one way and another, though 'twas more by the people that visited her for her wisdom than anything she made out of the tumble-down farm. More'n a cow or two she never had no cattle, and the last sheep to Walna went to pay for farmer Badge's coffin.
I was a maiden then and worked for Mrs. Badge, so I comed to see a lot about her and marked her manner of life. Half the things she did was thought to be miracles by the Postbridge people, yet if you saw the workings of 'em from inside, you found that, after all, they was only built on common sense. Still, I'll grant you that common sense itself is a miracle. 'Tis only one in a million ever shows it; and that one's pretty near sure to be a woman.
Charity was a thin, brown creature—birdlike in her ways, with quick movements, quick hands, and quick eyes. She never had no childer, and never wanted none. In fact, she was pretty well alone in the world after her husband died. There was a lot of Badges, of course, and still are; but she never had no use for them, nor them for her.
And now I'll tell the story of Sarah White and Mary Tuckett and Peter Hacker, the master of Bellaford.