At this dramatic and breathless point in Tuggie’s flip-nourished and quickly growing tale, credulous Debby, whose slow-working brain had failed to grasp all the vivid details in the black woman’s fervid and imaginative description, interjected this gasping comment: “It must ha’ been the devil or the creeper.” Benny jumped from his chair and stamped his foot, and at once burst into a loud laugh of intense relief, and with cheerful bravado began to explain animatedly to his open-mouthed cronies that of course anyone could see that Tuggie’s sheep-chasing witch was only the creeper sheep in her new fleece, and he offered swaggeringly to go out alone to the field to bring the ewe in to prove it. The old negress sprang to her feet, insulted and enraged at the jeering laughter and rallying jokes, and advanced threateningly toward him. Then, as if with a second thought, she stopped with a most malicious look, and in spite of Debby’s conciliatory explanations and her soothing expressions “that it might have been Mum Amey after all,” she thrust aside Benny’s proffered mollification of a fresh mug of flip, seized her crushed basket, stalked to the door, and left the house muttering, vindictively: “High time to stop such unrageous goin’s-on--dressin’ up sheeps like debbils--scarin’ an ole woman to death an’ breakin’ all her aigs! Ole Tuggie Bannocks ain’t forgot how to burn a project! Guess dey won’t larf at witches den!” And surely enough--as days passed it could plainly be seen that the old negress had carried out her threat--for the chimney was “conjured”--was “salted.” On windy nights the shepherd and his wife were sure they could hear Tuggie dancing and stamping on the roof, and she blew down smoke and threw down soot, and she called down the chimney in a fine, high, shrieking voice: “I’ll project ye, Benny; I’ll project ye.” And she burnt the cakes before the fire, and the roast upon the spit, and thrice she snapped out a blazing coal and singed a hole in Debby’s best petticoat, though it was worn wrong side out as a saving-charm. And Benny could see, too, that the old ram was bewitched. The remainder of the flock soon became accustomed to the sight of Nanny’s funny false fleece, but he always fled in terror at her approach. He grew thin and pale (or at any rate faded), and he would scarcely eat when Nanny was near. Debby despairingly tried a few feeble counter-charms, or “warders,” but without avail. When sheep-shearing time came, however, and Nanny, shorn of her uncanny fleece and clothed in her own half-inch snowy wool, took her place with the other short-clipped members of the flock, he ceased to be “witch-rid”--the “project,” the “conjure” was worked out. He grew fat and fiercely brave, and became once more the knight of the field, the lord of the domain, the patriarch, the potestate of his flock.