en Dr. Greefe is not popular?"

"Popular!" echoed the old man.

He drained his tankard and set it down on the table with a bang.

"He's been the ruin o' these parts, he has. He's worse than the
turnip-fly."

"But in what way is he responsible for these evils of which you
complain?"

The old man peered into his empty mug with a glance of such eloquence
that I could not mistake its import. Accordingly, I caused it to be
refilled, thus preventing any check in the flow of his eloquence, and:

"In what way?" he asked, his voice raised in a high quavering note. He
laughed, and his laughter was pitched in the same time-worn key. "That
doctor is a blot on the country. When Sir Burnham was alive--and afore
he went to Egypt--it was different; although, mind you, it's my
belief--oh, ah, it is indeed--that him coming here had as much to do
with Sir Burnham's death as the loss of his son what I told you
about. That's my belief."

I took a sip from my replenished mug, and:

"I cannot understand," I said, "why the presence of Dr. Greefe should
have brought about the death of Sir Burnham or the death of anybody
else."

"No," said the old man, cunningly; "you can't, eh? Well, there be
things none of us can understand and things some of us can. If you
ever clap eyes on that there black doctor, like enough this'll be one
of the things you'll be able to understand."

With the idea of drawing yet more intimate confidences:

"You suggest that Dr. Greefe had some hold upon the late Sir Burnham?"

"I don't suggest nothing."

"Some hold upon Lady Burnham, then?"

"Oh, ah, like enough."

"Don't think," I added solicitously, "that I doubt the truth of your
statements in any way, but what could this black doctor, as you call
him, have to gain by persecuting these people?"

"There be things," replied my aged friend, "what none of us can
understand, but there be things that all of us do. Oh, ah, there be;
and all of us in these parts knows as Upper Crossleys ain't been the
same since that black doctor settled here. Besides, first Mr. Roger
went, then Sir Burnham went. Now I do read in this 'ere paper as
another of 'em is gone."

He held up two gnarled and twitching fingers crossed before him.

"Did you ever hear tell of the evil eye?" he asked, and peered at me
cunningly. He took a long drink from his mug. "But maybe you'll laugh
at _that_," he added.

"I am in no way disposed to laugh at anything you have told me," I
assur