as a remedy, had been unknown in
Windyridge before my advent, but the few who had experienced it had not
remained silent witnesses to its power, so that the very dread of the
strange drug had been known to perform miraculously sudden cures in
certain cases; and "that sally-stuff o' Miss Holden's" had become a
word to charm with.

Sar'-Ann's groans subsided, but her breast heaved heavily, and her
apron still concealed her face.

"Cannot you speak, child?" I asked. "What is the matter? If you want
me to help you, you must do more than sob and cry. Now come!"

"It's Ginty!" she stammered; "he's run away an' robbed his mother of
every penny, an' brokken her heart an' mine. Oh, Ginty! Ginty!
Whatever shall I do?" and the rocking and sobbing began again.

I got the sal-volatile this time and forced her to swallow it, taking
no heed of her protests. Mother Hubbard came in, too, and added her
entreaties to my commands; and after a while she became calmer, and
then the whole story came out.

Ginty had been mixing in bad company for some months past. Somewhere
in the hollow of the moors a couple of miles away he had stumbled one
Sunday upon a gambling school, conducted, I imagine, by city rogues who
come out here to avoid the police, and had been threatened with
violence for his unwelcome intrusion. He had purchased immunity by
joining the school, and, unknown to everybody except Sar'-Ann, he had
visited it, Sunday by Sunday, with unfailing regularity, for the greed
of gain soon got hold of him. Sometimes he had won small sums, but
more often he had lost all his wages and even pledged his credit, until
he had not known where to turn for money.

"I gave 'im all I had," said Sar'-Ann, "an' I begged him to drop it,
but he said he couldn't, an' he'd only to go on long enough to be sure
to get it all back an' more to it. An' now, oh dear! oh dear! he's
robbed his poor mother an' made off; an' whatever I'm goin' to do I
don't know. O God! I wish I was dead!"

I left Mother Hubbard to console the stricken girl, fearing in my heart
that she had not revealed the extent of her trouble, and went straight
to Ginty's cottage, where a half-dozen women were doing their best to
comfort the poor mother, bereaved of her only support by what was worse
than death. Children were there, too, their fingers in their mouths
and their eyes wide with wonder, staring vacantly at the object of
universal commiseration, and silent in the p