as chalk from cheese from the way he laughed as a rule. For poor father was a frank-hearted, open-handed man, and not one to hoard up bitterness any more than he would hoard up money; but that laugh--the last I heard him give--was as bitter as gall. And he said, 'Well, Ivy, my girl, would you like to fetch me some peonies and marigolds and shepherd's thyme from a hill where the Silent People have danced, and make me a salad from them?' And seeing me looking surprised, he laughed again, and said, 'No, no. I doubt there are no flowers growing this side of the hills that could help your poor father. Come, give me a kiss--you've always been a good girl.' Now, these are flowers that old wives use in love potions, as I knew from my granny, who was very wise about herbs and charms, but father had always laughed at her for it, and I supposed he was fretting over my stepmother and Pugwalker, and wondering if he could win her heart back to him. "But that night he died, and it was then that I started wondering about that jelly in the pipkin, for him, liking scum as he did, and always having a saucer of it set aside for him, it wouldn't have been difficult to have boiled up some poison for him without any danger of other folks touching it. And Pugwalker knew all about herbs and such like, and could have told her what to use. For it was as plain as print that poor father knew he was going to die, and peonies make a good purge; and I've often wondered since if it was as a purge that he wanted these flowers. And that's all I know, and perhaps it isn't much, but it's been enough to keep me awake many a night of my life wondering what I should have done if I'd been older. For I was only a little maid of ten at the time, with no one I could talk to, and as frightened of my stepmother as a bird of a snake. If I'd been one of the witnesses, I dare say it would have come out in court, but I was too young for that." "Perhaps we could get hold of Diggory Carp?" "Diggory Carp?" she repeated in surprise. "But surely you heard what happened to him? Ah, that was a sad story! You see, after he was sent to gaol, there came three or four terrible lean years, one after the other. And food was so dear, no one, of course, had any money for buying fancy goods like baskets ... and the long and the short of it was that when Diggory came out of gaol he found that his wife and children had died of starvation. And it seemed to turn his wits, and he came up to our farm, raging against my stepmother, and vowing that someday he'd get his own back on her. And that night he hanged himself from one of the trees in our orchard, and he was found there dead the next morning."