as cool as though I'd come to have my
warts charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were
young. But I preserved my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world
are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have
been hanged."

'"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now."

'"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said.

'"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me an'
tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm
on you, Miss Phil, an' take away your little spitty cough."

'"Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!" I said. "I'm much
obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!"

'"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 comedown 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,