During breakfast James continued to show signs of improvement. He talked of his mother, and though his conversation was sprinkled with somewhat fantastic imagery, on the whole it was rational enough.
While the meal was still in progress, the younger brother observed through the window the figure of a woman, moving oddly backwards and forwards along their garden-hedge, as if anxious at the same time to attract and avoid attention. He recognized her in a moment as the notorious waif of the neighborhood, the somewhat sinister Witch-Bessie. He made an excuse to his brother and slipped out to speak to her.
Witch-Bessie had grown, if possible, still more dehumanized since when two months ago she had cursed Gladys Romer. Her skin was pallid and livid as parchment. The eyes which stared forth from her wrinkled expressionless face were of a dull glaucous blue, like the inside of certain sun-bleached sea-shells. She was dressed in a rough sack-cloth petticoat, out of which protruded her stockingless feet, only half concealed by heavy labourer’s boots, unlaced and in large holes. Over her thin shoulders she wore a ragged woolen shawl which served the office not only of a garment, but also of a wallet; for, in the folds of it, were even now observable certain half-eaten pieces of bread, and bits of ancient cheese, which she had begged in her wanderings. In one of her withered hands she held a large bunch of magenta-coloured, nettle-like flowers, of the particular species known to botanists as marsh-wound-wort. As soon as Luke appeared she thrust these flowers into his arms.
“Gathered ’un for ’ee,” she whispered, in a thin whistling voice, like the soughing of wind in a bed of rushes. “They be capital weeds for them as be moon-smitten. Gathered ’un, up by Seven Ashes, where them girt main roads do cross. Take ’un, mister; take ’un and thank an old woman wot loves both of ’ee, as heretofore she did love your long-sufferin’ mother. I were bidin’ down by Minister’s back gate, expectin’ me bit of oddments, when they did tell I, all sudden-like, as how he’d been taken, same as she was.”
“It’s most kind of you, Bessie,” said Luke graciously. “You and I have always been good friends.”
The old woman nodded. “So we be, mister, and let none say the contrary! I’ve a dangled ’ee, afore-now, in these very arms. Dost mind how ’ee drove that ramping girt dog out of Long-Load Barton when the blarsted thing were for laying hold of I?”
“But what must I do with these?” asked the stone-carver, holding the bunch of pungent scented flowers to his face.
“That’s wot I was just a-going to tell ’ee,” whispered the old woman solemnly. “I suppose he’s in there now, eh? Let ’un be, poor man. Let ’un be. May-be the Lord’s only waitin’ for these ’ere weeds to mend ’is poor swimey wits. You do as I do tell ’ee, mister, and ’twill be all smoothed out, as clean as church floor. You take these blessed weeds,—‘viviny-lobs’ my old mother did call ’em—and hang ’em to dry till they be dead and brown. Then doddy a sprinkle o’ good salt on ’em, and dip ’em in clear water. Be you followin’ me, mister Luke?”
The young man nodded.