Now, as Mrs. Clarke subsequently remarked, those words of Ann’s made her fair bibber, same as if a bucket of cold water were thrown down her back. She was full of compassion for her neighbour, and, though she was willing to believe that the strange, unpleasant power of which she had suddenly become possessed was unwelcome to her and unconsciously used, she was nevertheless forced to agree with Mrs. Biles that that didn’t make the thing no better, and that the more Ann Kerley kept herself to herself the safer it would be for all parties. Meanwhile, the anguish of mind endured by the unwilling sorceress defies description. Day by day her deplorable plight became more evident to her. Now an indignant farmer’s wife would come to complain that butter had not come, and on poor Ann’s protesting that she had never so much as set foot near the dairy, would retort that she had been seen gathering sticks at nightfall in the pasture, and had doubtless bewitched the cows. Now a village mother would hastily snatch up a child when it toddled towards the witch’s house; even the baker tossed the weekly loaf over the gate in fear, and left his bill at Mrs. Clarke’s, saying he would call for the money there. That lady informed her of the fact through the closed door as she dumped her morning bucket of water on the path without, adding that if she would like to leave the money in the bucket when she put it ready overnight, it would save trouble to every one. Ann Kerley understood: even her old crony was now afraid to meet her face to face. As she realised this she fell to crying feebly and hopelessly, as she had done so often of late, and Pussy came and jumped upon her knee, rubbing herself against her, and gazing at her with golden inscrutable eyes. The warm contact of a living creature, even a cat, was comforting, and the old woman hugged her favourite closely; but presently, struck by a sudden thought, she pushed it away, and turned aside her head. “There! get down, love! do--get away with ’ee, else I’ll maybe be doin’ thee a mischief. Oh dear, Puss, whatever should I do if anything happened to thee?” The idea positively appalled her, and from that moment she was careful to avert her face when she set the cat’s food before her. Perhaps the greatest trial of all was the Sunday church-going. “I d’ ’low the Lard won’t let I do nobody no harm in His House,” she had said to herself at first, almost hopefully; and she had donned her decent Sunday clothes eagerly, not to say joyfully. She was by nature sociable, and had suffered as severely from the inability to indulge in an occasional chat, a little harmless gossip, with this one and that one, as from a sense of being under a ban.