‘“Ah! I reckon she’ve been talking to you, then,” he said. “Yes, she give me no peace, and bein’ tarrified—for I don’t hold with old women—I laid a task on her which I thought ’ud silence her. I never reckoned the old scrattle ’ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an’ stole, I tell ye, as cheerful as a tinker. You might ha’ knocked me down with any one of them liddle spoons when she brung ’em in her apron.”
‘“Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?” I screamed at him.
‘“What else for, dearie?” he said. “I don’t stand in need of hedge-stealings. I’m a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I won’t trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she’d ha’ stole the Squire’s big fob-watch, if I’d required her.”
‘“Then you’re a wicked, wicked old man,” I said, and I was so angry that I couldn’t help crying, and of course that made me cough.
‘Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his cottage—it’s full of foreign curiosities—and he got me something to eat and drink, and he said he’d be hanged by the neck any day if it pleased me. He said he’d even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That’s a great come-down for a Witchmaster, you know.
‘I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and said, “The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a charm for me.”
‘“Yes, that’s only fair dealings,” he said. “You know the names of the Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But mind you, ’twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, right down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, and let it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There’s virtue for your cough in those names spoke that way. And I’ll give you something you can see, moreover. Here’s a stick of maple which is the warmest tree in the wood."’
‘That’s true,’ Una interrupted. ‘You can feel it almost as warm as yourself when you touch it.’
‘“It’s cut one inch long for your every year,” Jerry said. “That’s sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I’ve said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints.”
‘“I haven’t any complaints, Jerry,” I said. “It’s only to please Cissie.”