"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively, "but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like--and get a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown, and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and water, as they gives us." Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed lids blue. There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than a walk. Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her trouble had long ago been quenched. When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family, dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her treasure and laid it on her knees--the child was now quiet, through exhaustion. "I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has been overlooked--ill-wished." Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror. "That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall. "Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast an evil eye on it." The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind. "Who has done it?" she asked below her breath. "That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one who doesn't love the babe, that's sure." "A man or a woman?" Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant. "A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left han' side." Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless infant, now on her lap. "What can I do?" she asked. "There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the child--though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone, and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it." "I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the weather is too cold, baby too ill." Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she sobbed forth-- "A little fish swims in the well. So in my heart does baby dwell, The king has sceptre, crown and ball, You are my sceptre, crown and all."