Mrs. Byron’s accident had caught the imagination of her humble neighbours. For years they had watched her riding about, a wholesome hearty woman with a ripe cheek and a commanding eye. Not one of them, but had had experience of her vigour and capacity. She was now reduced to a helplessness greater than that of child or dotard and to her helplessness was added the mystery of mutilation. During the long light weeks the cottagers sat at their doors of an evening and, while Charley Brenton trimmed hair in the front garden, discussed the inopportune event. "I was almost sure there was ill luck comin’," said Mrs. Bate, the woman who was Stripper, or Nurse for the hamlet, that is to say who laid out the dead. The man upon whom the barber was operating was a Brenton from the neighbouring valley of Polscore. The gossip was new to him. "’Ow d’yer think so?" he asked. "I b’lieve she was ill-wished. Never mind ’ow I think so, you wait an’ see. My belief, there’s they ’av got an evil eye on ’er." Aunt Louisa Blewett looked up from her sewing. She was a peculiarly neat and clean old woman, who spent her time going from one house to another, mending and making for the long families. She did not speak, but her toothless mouth worked as if over a choice morsel. "I thought the witches were all gone years ago," remarked the stranger Brenton. "Well, there is witches, only they don’t come out in their true colour," asserted Mrs. Bate, whose mother was said to have been the last in Tregols. "Besides," urged old Hawken, the sailor, who was sitting on a stone awaiting his turn at Charley Brenton’s hands, "who’s goin’ to do Mrs. Byron any ’arm? A nicer woman never lived. She’s noted for ’er kindness at Christmas time or any other time." "Iss, iss, we knaw she’s well liked," said Mrs. Bate non-committally. Unlike Aunt Louisa she had still an occasional milestone of tooth. The old women were handsome now, and what must they have been when they were the village belles? "Still, I b’lieve there’s one that bear ’er a grudge. I don’t mention any names but you can think ’oo you like." "Go along, you don’t think as ’e’d do ’er a mischief do yer?" "Hush!" For some time the sound of approaching hoofs had been carried to them on the still air of the evening; and the voices died into silence as Leadville Byron, on his black stallion, clattered by. The animal was as usual flecked with foam, the master stained with the mud of the road. Returning from his humiliating interview with Sabina, he had found in the hard gallop up hill and down, an outlet for his rage and disappointment. What did he care if he lamed the horse? Whirling through the hamlet he noticed the curious cottagers no more than the birds in the hedges.