Tessibel entered the shanty, finding Mother Moll stretched out on the bed, with a corn-cob pipe between her shriveled lips. "Get up from there, Ma Moll," ordered Tess, "and come to my hut. I wants ye." "It air too hot," muttered the witch. "I ain't a-movin' from the bed to-day." Tessibel bent over the wrinkled face, and looked determinedly into the blood-shot eyes. "I got someone what air sick," she exclaimed, grasping the hag's arm forcibly. "Ye air to come with me.... See? And if ye does come, I gives ye a mess of eels every week for a year--and more'n that. I'll pick yer berries from yer own patch, if ye can't pick them yerself." "Who air a-ailin'?" asked the old woman, crawling out of bed. "Never mind. Come along." It was a strange couple, forging the gorges and gullies, pushing aside the brambles to the lane almost opposite Minister Graves' home. In the summer's quietude, the squatter girl could mark the long chairs on the Dominie's front porch, and the hammock sagging from the hooks in the corner. No one saw the witch and Tessibel enter the hut; no one heard the girl slip the night lock into its fastening. Teola, frightened and miserable, raised her head, and looked once at Mother Moll, then dropped it again. CHAPTER XXVIII Dusk had fallen over the lake, closing the shanty within the shadows of the weeping willows. Mother Moll had departed before sunset. Tessibel had four candles streaming their twinkling light upon the bare floor of the hut, and was busying herself at the stove. A voice from the bed faintly whispered: "Did you tell Rebecca what I told you to? Tell me again what you said to her." "I telled that ye was to stay to-night with a girl below the ragged rocks, and she didn't give a dum. She air only a workin' girl; she ain't yer own flesh and blood." "And the baby, Tessibel? May I see my baby?" "Nope, not to-night." "Please, Tessibel! Please! Are his eyes grey, and has he dark hair on his head?" "If ye don't shut up, I takes the brat to Ma Moll.... Now, then, drink this tea, and eat this bread. To-morry ye has to go home, ye know." "But my baby, Tess! What shall I do about my baby?" The nervous whining in Teola's voice brought Tess over to her. The squatter forced the soiled blanket over the young shoulders. "If ye sleeps to-night, I tells ye in the mornin' about the brat.... Sleep, now." For more than an hour Tessibel sat with Teola Graves' baby clasped tightly in her arms, moving back and forth silently in the wooden rocker. A broken board squeaked now and then under the girl's weight, but she slipped the chair into other positions, and rocked on.