On that same day, by evil fortune, a brig manned by Dawlish men stood in the Bouche de Saint-Hoël. These men, seeing that it was fête day, and curious because of the smoke, the screams, and the stench, went to the holocaust. There they saw a wild child, more animal or goblin than human being. This wild child would have followed her mother, who burned in the heart of the fire, if soldiers had not pushed her back. A priest bade the soldiers let her pass to death, for, being of witch-people, she would undoubtedly burn sooner or later. The Englishmen protested, and Mr. Jared Bilby, captain and owner of the brig, caught and held the wild child, who did not struggle against him as she had against the soldiers. Instead she held fast to him, for even the wicked may recognize goodness. The priest showed his yellow fangs at the Dawlish men. He hated and scorned them. ‘Take the child and be gone. She was born of a witch-woman and will grow to witchcraft and do much harm—but in England among the heretics. Be gone.’ The child clung to Mr. Bilby and he to her. He took her in his arms, and she lay corpse-pale and glass-eyed like one about to die. This men remembered. When he put her down upon the deck of the brig, he was badly sweated as though his burden had been more than he, a strong young man, might bear. He told his men the child weighed as though a child of stone. Some thought that his heart mistook him, and that he already regretted the acceptance of so dangerous a gift. Gathering his men about him and having prayed, he gave thanks to Jehovah, Who, although He had never given him a child of his own body, yet had seen fit to send this poor little one to him. Then he bade his men keep their tongues behind their teeth, telling no one from whence was this child (which in the future should be his child), nor the manner of her parents’ death, nor the harm which the priest swore she should live to perform. This promise his men kept for years, but in the end, when they were old men, they preferred to serve Gossip and Scandal rather than a kind master, long, long dead. For days the child lay like death, only occasionally jumping madly from her pallet, screaming ‘Le feu! Le feu! Le feu!’ then falling back, covering her face with her hands and laughing horribly. The captain coaxed and petted her, urged her to eat, and quieted her with his hands. So by love he restored her to humanity. Because of her small size he called her ‘Doll,’ which name she well lived up to, never acquiring the height and weight of other women. No one ever knew her real age. She may have been seven or perhaps six when she first came to England. Being unable to talk English and at first unable to serve herself, she may have seemed younger than she was. Yet, on the other hand, Fear, Grief, and Sickness often make their Hosts appear older than the fact.