'Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a new lash on my whip. Oh, I was _furious_! Witchmaster or no witchmaster, I meant to----' 'Ah! what's a Witchmaster?' 'A master of witches, of course. _I_ don't believe there are witches; but people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war's man, and now he pretends to be a carpenter and joiner--he can make almost anything--but he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can cure them after Dr. Break has given them up, and that's why Dr. Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts when I was a child.' Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate shiny little nails. 'It isn't counted lucky to cross him. He has his ways of getting even with you, they say. But _I_ wasn't afraid of Jerry! I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my _Troubadour_ (I wish you could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out into the hedge-top. _Most_ undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn't care. "Now, Jerry," I said, "I'm going to take the hide off you first, and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why." "Oh!" he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. "Then I reckon you've come about old Cissie's business, my dear." "I reckon I just about have," I said. "Stand away from these hives. I can't get at you there." "That's why I be where I be," he said. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Phil, I don't hold with bein' flogged before breakfast, at my time o' life." He's a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives that--I know I oughtn't to--I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, "Then give me back what you made poor Cissie steal!" '"Your pore Cissie," he said. "She's a hatful o' trouble. But you shall have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you." And, would you believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff! "Here they be," he says, and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I'd come to have my warts charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were young. But I preserved my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have been hanged." '"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now." '"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said. '"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me and tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm on you, Miss Phil, and take away your little spitty cough."