“You be a wise lot here, you be!” he cried; “you do know summat, you do. Tell ’ee what--you be the biggest lot o’ stunpolls as ever was seed or heerd on. This be your witch, be it?--thikky poor wold ’ooman what have never done anybody a bit o’ harm in her life--poor wold Ann Kerley what was born and bred here, and did get married to a Little Branston man an’ all, and what have lived among ye so quiet an’ peaceful as a body could do. Why, look at her! Look at the poor wold frightened face of her; d’ye mean for to tell I that’s the face of a witch?” “Well, she did blight our ’taters,” growled somebody. “An’ she did overlook Mrs. Clarke’s young duck----” “Did she?” retorted Farmer Joyce, sarcastically. “Well, she didn’t overlook my young duck, and they be dead--the most on ’em--what do ye make o’ that? Did ye never hear, you wise folk, as duckling do mostly die in thunder weather? And I’ll warrant you be too wise hereabouts to have heerd that this be a blight-year. A lot o’ my ’taters be blighted----” “I’m sure,” put in poor Martha, eagerly, “our ’taters be blighted too. There, my husband do say ’tis scarce worth while to get ’em up.” “I s’pose,” cried Farmer Joyce, looking round with withering sarcasm, “I s’pose this ’ere witch have a-gone and wished ill-luck to her own darter’s ’taters. ’Tis very likely, I’m sure. And there’s another thing--I did hear some tale o’ bees a-dyin’ arter they’d a-been put in a new hive.” “That’s true enough.” “’Tis true, sure,” came one or two voices in reply, not with any great enthusiasm, however; then a man’s sullen tones--“’Tis so true as anything. They was my bees, an’ I can answer for ’t bein’ true.” “How much food did ye put in for ’em when ye did shift ’em?” inquired Joyce, fixing his eyes on the speaker. “How much food? I d’ ’low bees be like to keep theirselves.” “Not when you do take their store off ’em so late in the season. You’ve a-killed your own bees, good man; they were too weak, d’ye see, to keep wosses off when they did come a-fightin’ of ’em. I’d ha’ thought you’d ha’ been clever enough to ha’ knowed that, seein’ what knowin’ folks you be in Little Branston. There, you did know poor wold Mrs. Kerley tied her ’andkercher over her head to make herself a witch--’twas that what made her a witch, weren’t it? Now I be a witch, bain’t I?” He whisked off his hat suddenly, and drawing a cotton handkerchief from his pocket threw it over his head and tied the ends beneath his chin. The sight of his large red face with its fringe of grey whisker looking jubilantly out of the red and yellow folds, was irresistibly comic; the bystanders fairly roared. The farmer was quick to follow up his advantage. “I must be a witch,” he persisted, “seein’ as I’ve a-got a witch’s head on;” then, seized by a yet more luminous inspiration, he crowned the meek and trembling Ann Kerley with his own broad-brimmed and shaggy beaver.