“They’ll be callin’ you a witch next, puss,” said she laughing. Ann carried her bucket to the well as usual next morning, feeling rather more cheerful than was her custom. Rain had fallen shortly after daybreak, but the sky was now clear and limpid, and the air cool. On her way to the well her attention was caught by a loud clucking in her neighbour’s garden, and looking across the dividing hedge she descried a hen violently agitating herself inside a coop, while a brood of yellow downy ducklings some few hours old paddled in and out of a pool beside the path. “Well, of all the beauties!” cried Ann, clapping her hands together until the bucket rattled on her arm; “why, Mrs. Clarke, my dear, you must have hatched out every one--’tis a wonderful bit o’ luck.” “E-es, indeed,” agreed Mrs. Clarke, “hatchin’ out so late an’ all. I hope I may do well wi’ ’em.” “I hope so, that do I,” agreed Ann heartily, and hobbled on towards the well. One or two women were there, who responded to her greeting with a coldness which she did not at once realise. “Fine rain this marnin’,” she remarked cheerfully, as her bucket went clattering down the well; “we’ve had a good drop to-year, haven’t we? Farmers may grumble, but, as I do say, ’tis good for the well. We’ll be like to draw a bit less chalk nor we do in the dry seasons. There be all sarts in our well, bain’t there? Water an’ chalk, an’ a good few snails. There, when I do hear folks a-talkin’ about the Government doin’ this an doin’ that, I do say to myself, I wish Government ’ud see to our well.” Usually such a sally would have been applauded, but, to poor old Ann’s astonishment and chagrin, her remark was received on this occasion in solemn silence. To hide her discomfiture she peered into the moss-grown depths of the well. “Don’t ye go a-lookin’ into it like that, Ann,” cried a vinegary-faced matron in an aggressive tone. “Chalky water, e-es, an’ water wi’ snails in’t is better than no water at all. ’Tis sure--’tis by a long ways.” “Ah, ’tis!” agreed the others, eyeing Ann suspiciously. She straightened herself and looked round in surprise. “I never said it wasn’t,” she faltered. “Why do ye look at me so nasty, Mrs. Biles?” “Oh, ye don’t know, I s’pose?” retorted Mrs. Biles sourly. “How be your ’taters, Ann Kerley, this marnin’?” “Doin’ finely, thanks be,” said poor Ann, brightening up, as she considered the conversation was taking a more agreeable turn. “Not blighted, I s’pose?” put in a little fat woman who had hitherto been silent. “Not a sign o’ blight about ’em,” said Mrs. Kerley joyfully. “There, I did just chance to look at ’em when I did first get up, an’ they’re beautiful.” “That’s strange,” remarked Mrs. Biles, with a meaning sniff. “Every single ’tater at the ’lotments be blighted, they do tell I. Mrs. Pilcher did say when her husband went up there this marnin’ he could smell ’em near a quarter of a mile away.”